


A Year Without Summer

by buttcat



Series: pay no mind [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Curtain Fic, Domestic, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, SORT OF ANYWAY IDK, Totally not suspicious at all, there is nothing wrong and we are okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-05 12:57:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 50,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3120959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttcat/pseuds/buttcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After taking out the Mother of All, the Winchester brothers decide to take an early retirement and purchase a teeny house in a quiet town. At least, Dean thinks that's what's happened. His brain is maybe not working so great, and he can't really figure out why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When Dean blinks awake a wave of disorientation crashes over him. There are a pair of strong arms wrapped around his middle, one large hand splayed possessive over his stomach, and he’s thinking  _no, wait, this isn’t right_ , and then the arms shift around him and a blunt nose finds the back of his neck and he remembers  _Sam_ , and  _home_ , and  _safe_.

He is comfortable in a way he hasn’t been for years - except, that can’t be right, because this is his life and has been for a few months now, Sam snuffling sleep breath into his nape, their legs hooked together, sun-warmed soft skin pressed up everywhere. If he claws off the comforter and looks around, he knows, he will see their room as it always is: three tall, thin windows with cheap slatted blinds he can’t ever figure out, high, sloped ceiling, yesterday’s jeans puddled on the floor where he’d left them, one of Sam’s poncy cardigans draped over the desk chair. He can map it out in his head without looking, easy, all of it so familiar he can’t remember why he’d felt disoriented in the first place. Of course he’s happy, he’s got Sam and the house and this goddamn mindblowingly comfortable bed.

He leans his spine back into the warm curve of his brother’s chest and hips, feels his cock blood-thick and eager on the backs of his thighs. Sam makes a noise that might be his name but could also just as easily be a soup of random, sleepy consonants, and Dean decides right then he’s going to wake his brother up right.

He rolls his hips, slow and firm and edging downward until he's sliding Sam's cock between his ass cheeks, hot length of him rubbing smooth against the seam of Dean's boxers. He must've fallen asleep in them, which is a-okay, because they're nice, soft against his skin, and he remembers now - they're one of the pairs he'd gotten when they'd first moved here, after Sam'd teased him over the graying, shredded, Walmart-brand boxers he'd been wearing since his early twenties, unidentifiable now as actual underwear, and they'd gone to pick out a few packages together at the Macy's ( _so domestic,_ he'd complained). The memories bubble up sluggish in his sleep-heavy brain and he stretches a warm smile into his pillow at them as he presses back into his brother, works him gentle and easy. If he's good, if he goes slow, he'll be able to get Sam inside him before he's even all the way awake, and isn't  _that_ just a fucking incredible way to wake up, straight out of sleep and into - . Well. They'd managed that before, hadn't they?  _Hadn't they - ?_ Yeah, right, just a few weeks ago, Dean's brain tells him, early enough that the sun was still rising and the whole room was this ethereal orangey-pink color. Dean'd woken up still wet and open from the night before (when Sam'd held him close and they'd fucked forehead-to-forehead, chests and arms and legs slick with sweat and all pressed up together, lips touching but not kissing, both of them too caught up to do more than pant into each other's mouths, stare eye-to-eye in incredulous wonder), and he'd eased Sam back into him simple as breathing, ridden him careful until Sam'd woken with a whimper and pulled him into a kiss, pumped up into him fast and uncontrolled,  _Dean, Dean, God, yes. Always._

That isn't in the cards today, Dean's realizing, because Sam's already halfway to awake and stirring, muttering more nonsense into the vulnerable, sun-stained skin of Dean's neck, hand petting down his stomach and splaying wide just above the elastic of his boxers.

He could tilt his hips up into that big hand, squirm and wriggle until he got his own aching hard-on a little attention, but he stays where he is and lets his brother grind into him through the thin barrier of both their boxers because they've got all the time in the goddamn world and he's gonna enjoy the shit out of it, goddammit. He's content, for now, to listen to Sam purr untempered, happy little noises against his neck, to feel, rather than see, his gentle smile, the severe, untroubled slope of his brow. If this was his last day on Earth, he'd be fucking content. (His heaven, he imagines, is this moment stretched out into infinity). 

He feels teeth and then wet tongue against his bare shoulder, light suction, and he shifts around until he’s face-to-face with Sam and catches his lax, gummy lips with his own. They kiss in the unhurried, simple way of a couple who've had years already to map each other’s bodies.  Sam’s hand drifts down to the small of his back, begins to trace little patterns into his skin.

When he pulls away, Sam’s eyes are open, and they’re so full of love it makes Dean a little anxious.

“You taste disgusting,” he informs his brother, just to restore their equilibrium.

Sam rolls his eyes. "Good morning to you, too."

"Aw, Sammy, really?" Dean says, snaking a hand down between them. "You're gonna complain 'bout this?"

Sam still manages to look pissy, even with the head of his cock cradled in Dean's palm. "You're an - mm. An ass."

"And you're a goddamn ray of sunshine. Sam," Dean says, in between getting both his hands past the waistband of Sam's boxers, "fuck me." 

Sam moans. "S'tempting, but - " 

"Don't argue, c'mon, fuck. I want you in me, like, yesterday." 

"No, really, Dean, I can't - " 

The alarm clock goes off at that moment. Dean, seasoned hunter and veteran of at least one apocalypse, flails off the bed, his jerking knee missing his brother's balls by mere millimeters.  

" - I've got work," Sam finishes, propping himself up on an elbow so he can peer over the side of the bed. "You can blow me in the shower real quick though, if you want."

"Lucky me," Dean says. 

He can't believe he forgot. It's... Thursday, so Sam has work. Of course. As a, uh. A professor! Of - theology? No, anthropology. Yeah, myths and culture and shit. Kid was always destined for better things. Anyway, he's only got an hour now to get to the, the, um, the local community college! Where he teaches. Yes. That.

"'Scuse me," Sam says, stepping over him. His boxers are tented in an obscene fashion but he doesn't much seem to care. Dean grabs at his heels to trip him, but misses spectacularly.

"You coming?" Sam asks at the door to the bathroom, one eyebrow raised.

"You're such a little bitch," Dean informs him, and follows.

 

The shower takes twenty minutes all told (ten minutes for Sam to wash his girly hair, ten for Dean to get on his knees and blow his fucking mind), and then Dean helps him choose from the vast selection of hideous grandpa sweaters they'd somehow accumulated since moving in.

"This one's not that ugly," Dean says, offering out a moss-green number with a ring of white snowflakes knit under the breast.

"Ha ha. No, Dean, that's a Christmas sweater. S'not appropriate for the season." 

"None of these are appropriate for  _any_ season. Ever. Do you pick them this gross on purpose, or - ?" 

" _I_ think they're nice. My students say they like 'em, too."

"Yeah, uh, hate to break it to you, Sammy, but they're making fun of you." 

"Go fuck yourself," Sam says conversationally. "What d'you know, anyway? All you wear is plaid."

"It's functional," Dean says. "And rugged."

"Uh-huh. Okay, we're going with this one," Sam announces, whipping a maroon sweater out of the drawer like it's a magician's scarf. He wrangles it over his head.

"Ew," Dean says.

"I don't wanna hear it."

They wander into the kitchen and Dean goes about making coffee while Sam flips through a sheaf of student essays at the table. "You're such a sweet little housewife," he tells Dean, and Dean kicks a leg of the table hard enough to make the papers scatter everywhere. Sam is left to fix his own coffee. 

Stuck to the refrigerator around the souvenir magnet they'd got from Illinois at the world's largest ketchup bottle attraction and the magnet advertising Singer Salvage are a number of chunky plastic alphabet magnets and, in a fit of inspiration, Dean slides them around to read BONER, and then, above it, LICK MY. Sam ignores him to scribble a huge red  **62** and a lopsided frowny face at the top of one of his papers.  

"These are all terrible," he says. "Listen to this:  _vampires are the worldwide phenomena of the world,_ phenomena spelled p-h-a-n-o-m-i-n-a.  _Every culture has a vampire myth -_ " 

"Phenomena's spelled with a  _ph_? Huh. And, I mean, it's bas'cly true, right? There are Chinese vampires, and Argentinian vampires, all sorts of vampires all over the place."

"Yeah, but, with the way the kid's defined  _vampire,_ might as well stick goddamn chupacabras on the list."

"Chupacabras ain't vampires."

"That's what I'm - "

 _Beep beep beep,_ says Sam's watch. He starts to gather up the papers. 

"I gotta - " 

"Yeah, yeah, get outta here," Dean says. "Can't keep your fans waiting." 

"Ugh," Sam says, pulling on his boots. "Dunno if I can do this." 

"What class've you got today?

"The Living Myth," Sam says. "A study of the trajectory of popular myth and fantasy from its earliest recorded appearances - "

"Yeah, okay, Professor," Dean says, nudging him out the door. "I get it. See you for lunch."

"Yup!" Sam says, and then pecks him on the lips, right there on the front porch.

"Uh," Dean says.

Sam gives him a fond look, turns, and ambles down the walk. Dean stares dumbly at him, watches him get into the beat-up oatmeal colored '85 Jetta coupe they'd scored for five hundred bucks and drive away, waving into the passenger window before he takes the turn off their street.   

An old, familiar panic is swarming him, clogging up his airways, and he has to grip the porch railing for support to steady himself. Across the road there's an old lady watering the pink and blue flowers in her front garden, and a few doors down there's a little kid pushing around his sister in a wagon, and Dean just kissed his brother in broad daylight for all of God and country to see.

The old lady wiggles her watering can at him and he tries to smile back at her. She takes this as an invitation to cross over, as if he isn't having an existential crisis at sixty miles per hour right in front of her.

"Good morning," she says. "Lovely out, isn't it? Weather's great for petunias."

She looks vaguely familiar and Dean spends a futile moment trying to place where he's seen her before he realizes, duh, she's his next-door neighbor. Of course she looks familiar, he's been seeing her probably every morning for the past few months, her cheerful wrinkly old-person face and veiny dirt-dusted hands. 

"It's so sweet of you, seeing Sam off like that in the mornings. Have I ever told you that? The two of you are so cute."

"Well," Dean says. He gets the distinct feeling he's heard her say this maybe ten or fifteen times already. 

"Reminds me of Georgie, my late husband. I used to send him off every day with a kiss and a smile, up until his heart gave out."

Dean makes conciliatory noises at her.

"It was a long time ago, dear. But we were just the same, so in love with each other we couldn't hardly think straight. Oh, now, don't be embarrassed. You young men, so stoic."

"I've got to, uh. Things. Busy," Dean says, ac cutely aware that he's still in his boxers and the faded Led Zeppelin tee he'd found balled up on the sink when he'd gotten out of the shower. It has an enormous hole worn through the shoulder blades and the collar is starting to separate from the body of the shirt, and he's pretty sure he's kept it only for a) nostalgia purposes and b) because Sam fucking hates it.

"Of course! Don't let me keep you. Don't forget, you and your Sam are welcome over for dinner, any time."

"Uh. Yup. We'll totally, um, do that. Soon." 

"I should hope so," she says, and he watches her wander back across the street, just to make sure she isn't nailed by a car or something. She isn't, and he retreats back into the house, probably a whole lot more off-kilter than he should be.

Everything's just felt fucking  _weird_ since he woke up, like the neighborhood's shifted over twenty degrees to the right during the night, everything familiar and exactly the same as it's always been but at the same time raw and alien, newly wrong in a way he can't quite put his finger on. The house is exactly as it's always been: single story, no basement, baby-blue and trimmed with white, third one down on the street, only his brain's warning him that it wasn't like this yesterday, that something major has swapped around when he wasn't looking, and now he can't place just what it is.

It's the lifestyle, he knows. He isn't used to staying in one place for so long, and it's messing with his head. He's all ready to pop into the Impala and drive five counties over to dig up a grave, only he's got rent and bills and a dresser with all his clothes in it, a refrigerator with groceries to last till the next month, and he can't pick up and go the way he used to.

That's okay, though. He likes it here. Right?  _Right._ And, more importantly, Sam likes it here, too, likes knowing their neighbors by name and having  _colleagues_  and an official place of residence. He's such a damn nerd. 

Dean finishes up the rest of the coffee. He should probably put some clothes on, because - ?  _Because,_ he has to get going to his  _own_ job, the thing he does to keep himself from going crazy while Sam's off professoring. He's got a little while until he's officially supposed to be there, but there's nothing to do in the house unless he wants to get started on the laundry or cleaning the bathroom which, no.  _That_ was one part of stationary living he hadn't been able to get used to right away - places to sleep that didn't come with maids to clean up after you - and it'd taken a few false starts and impressive towers of dirty dishes before he'd gotten into the swing of things. He still preferred to let Sam take care of the bulk of it, especially the weird fiddly stuff like smudged windowsills and dusty shelves.

He kicks on a pair of old oil-stained jeans, shrugs a long-sleeved button up over the holey Led Zeppelin shirt. He's just gonna put a lumpy coverall over all of it, so he hardly has to be Miss America. As long as he isn't naked, no one'll complain. He shuffles out of the house, gets in the Impala, and drives. The shop's only a couple blocks away, so he could probably walk, but he doesn't often get the chance to take his baby out for a stroll any more and he likes to spend as much time in her as he can.

There're already customers hanging out in the waiting room when he gets there. It's gonna be a busy day. 

"Heya, Lou," he tells the kid at reception.

"Got a lady with a Corvette needs looking at," Lou says, chewing on a string of red licorice. He's amicable in a dorky way, and Dean likes him all right. Reminds him of a younger Sammy.

"Awesome," Dean says. "Tell Danny I'll be right up."

Lou salutes him, turns back to the pocket book of sudoku he's got open on the desk. Dean lets himself into the garage.

Corvette Lady turns out to be a bigger job than he'd anticipated - her engine's screwed up beyond belief, and her trunk's crumpled up like paper - so he spends most of the morning tinkering away in her guts, doing what he can to repair the damage and falling into a mechanically-induced haze along the way, absorbed by the puzzle under his hands. For a long while there's just birdsong and machine-heat and the smell of oil, streaks on the thighs of his coveralls where he wipes his greasy hands, and the world aligns into place perfectly, everything where it ought to be. The work makes sense in a way other pieces of his suburban life don't (like gardening, or barbecues, or sending out Christmas cards).

Danny breaks through his fugue state at around noon, banging through the door and tossing a wet sponge at Dean's head. "Your boyfriend's here to see you," he says, and leaves.

"Not my boyfriend," Dean says, but Danny's gone and doesn't hear him. Instead there's Sam's dopey head sticking through the door to the garage, bemused smile on his face.

"Thought we were gonna meet up at Lucy's," he says. "Glad I called you first, or else I'd be sitting alone in a booth right now."

"Lucy's?" Dean says ( _the diner, idiot,_ his brain supplies). "Right. Shit, sorry. I got distracted."   

"Yeah, I figured.  _So,"_ Sam says, picking his way over discarded car parts to come dangle a plastic takeout bag in his brother's face. "I got us subs from The Star."

"Oh, shit, man, you're the best," Dean says, grabbing at the bag. He's suddenly ravenously hungry, and no wonder - all he's got in his stomach is the shitty cup of coffee he'd had at breakfast. 

"Hell yeah I am. You owe me, dude."

"You get me ham?"

"And turkey, and pepperoni."

"Ugh. I could kiss you."

He means it rhetorically (hypothetically?) but Sam takes it as an invitation and shoves the bag out of the way to press their mouths together. Dean tolerates it for a good fifteen seconds and then resumes his laser-like focus on his sandwich.  

"Dean," Sam whines.

"Later. I'm starving. Mm. Oh man, that's good." 

"Hey, gimme mine."

"I dunno, maybe I'll just eat both of these. Ugh, or not," Dean says, wiggling Sam's unwrapped sandwich at him. "The fuck is this?"

"It's grilled vegetables. It's good for you," Sam says, reaching for it. 

"That looks like worms. And cat puke," Dean says, handing it over.

"It's onions, and eggplant, and mushroom. All delicious, not that you'd know."

"And I don't ever plan on finding out," Dean says, taking a big happy bite of his awesome artery-clogging sub. Sam rolls his eyes like the bitchy baby he is and suffers through his shitty sandwich silently. Dean makes sure to eat his extra loud just so Sam knows what he's missing. 

When they finish Sam doesn't waste a moment and swoops in to capture Dean's lips again. This is strange, kissing just to kiss, but he likes it, and he leans into Sam happily, cupping his stubbly cheek in one hand and finding his waist with the other. He doesn't think he usually does this, not with anyone, let alone men - let alone  _Sam -_ and the closeness is comforting, warm, like the thing they have is more than just some roadside hookup. But, hell, of course it is, because this is Sam, Sammy, his stupid little brother, and he - Sam's important, is all. He's important. 

This doesn't stop Dean from surreptitiously smearing oil on the sleeve of his sweater, though. When he pulls away he's got some smeared on the tip of his nose, too, and Dean snickers at him.

"What," Sam whines. 

"Nothing," Dean tells him, and pulls him into another kiss, still gentle, hardly more than a peck. "You got anything else to do today?"

"Nah," Sam says. "I'm all yours."

Their joint schedule runs through Dean's mind like ticker tape (so weird to have a schedule, weird to have  _appointments_ and  _deadlines),_ and yeah, right, Sam's only got the one class on Thursdays, so he can come straight home after his office hours finish up at noon. It's for this reason alone that Thursdays are easily his favorite day of the week, and how could he have forgotten  _that?_ He gets to see Sam early. 

"You gonna stick around?" Dean asks, and God damn him but he's struck with a little ping of joy when Sam nods yes. He'd gotten used to spending about near every hour of every day together - driving, fighting, researching - and after all that time moving as one person, being apart just seems wrong. It'd been like this when Sam'd left for college, too, all of him surrounded by the uncomfortable obvious space where his brother isn't, their distance sometimes the only thing he could focus on. He'd talk and sing and yell to himself just to keep out the quiet, drown out the silent places where there ought to be another heart beating, another set of lungs taking air in and out. Even knowing Sam's only a few miles away, the distance of a couple more hours, he can't help but feel incomplete until they're actually side-by-side. 

He'd love to just sit and talk with his brother the rest of the day, maybe make out a little more, but he's gotta get this Corvette road-safe soonish so Sam leans over him and talks and watches while he fucks around with her engine. Danny should probably disapprove of this, he thinks, but his boss is nowhere to be found, and as long as no one tells him  _no_ outright he's gonna keep on keeping on. 

"It's weird to talk about this shit like it isn't real, you know?" Sam's saying as Dean reconnects parts that  _definitely_ should already have been connected. "Like,  _wendigos are an Algonquin superstition, borne of blah blah blah_. Except, I've seen one."

"And flambe'd it."

"Yeah. Not so much a superstition."

"You ever think about telling 'em?"

"What, that monsters're stalking us? Nah."

"No interest in raising the newest generation of hunters?"

" _Hell_ no. Besides, things've been pretty quiet, huh?"

"Yeah," Dean says, swapping out his wrench for a screwdriver. "They have. You ever think that's weird?"

"Nah, why?"

"Well, I mean - wasn't there an upswing in monsters a while ago? There was that Mother of All bullshit, wasn't there? Man, that sucked ass."

"Yeah, but we took care of her. With the phoenix ash, remember?"

Yeah, he remembered. Still has the scar on his neck from where she'd bit him. Except - . "There were still a buncha monster babies running around though, weren't there? Fuckin' Jefferson Starships and shit."

"Nah, they all died with her, man."

What? No. That isn't - . "I thought - "

"Yeah, they all went up in smoke the second she did," Sam insists.

"...Oh. Yeah, no, you're right. They all... yeah."

He has to put down the screwdriver to rub at his temples. He feels foggy and congested, and a little achy around the eyes. 

"You okay, man?" Sam asks.

"I'm good," Dean says. "Don't worry, I'm just, I don't know, headachey all of the sudden. Ugh."

"You wanna go home?"

"Well,  _yeah._ But I'm - no, I'm okay. S'not worth taking a sick day over." 

"If you say so," Sam says. He watches him carefully for the rest of the afternoon.

 

They get home at three, both in their separate cars. Dean sheds his garage-grimy shirt and jeans as soon as he gets through the door, throwing them in the general direction of the sofa ( _"Goddammit, Dean,"_ Sam grumbles), and clamors into the shower focused only on removing the sticky patina of sweat and grease he'd accumulated while working. He's surprised, then, when Sam barges into the bathroom minutes after he's just gotten comfortable under the spray, sheds his own clothes, and joins him.

"Uh," Dean says, as Sam shimmies up behind him. "Hi? Can I help you?"

"Yes, actually," Sam says, shifting forward so that Dean can feel his erect cock against the cleft of his ass. "You owe me, remember?"

"Collecting already? Damn," Dean says, turning to face him.

"Nuh-uh," Sam murmurs against his earlobe, pinning him in place against the wall of the shower with a hand against the back of his shoulder. "I wanna eat you out."

"Um," Dean gasps, as Sam's other hand slides down and presses against the small of his back. "Okay."

"Hands on the wall," Sam growls, nipping at his ear. "Bend over. Let me see."

Dean complies, allowing the hand at his back to guide him. He rests his forearms and head against the shower wall, widening his stance. He can feel his cock filling between his legs, stirred by Sam's voice alone. 

The hand at the small of his back slides down further, grips one ass cheek and pulls him open, and he can feel water from the spray drum against his entrance, slide down his sensitive inner thighs. He can't see it but he knows his asshole's twitching and jerking and he grinds his red face into the hinge of his elbow like he can hide from it, like maybe if he closes his eyes the shame will go away. They've done this before, he's pretty sure, but it feels like the first time - feels like the first time  _anyone's_ done  _anything_ like this, God-fucking-damn - and the intimacy is near overwhelming, knowing his brother's peering down at him when he's exposed like this. 

There's hot breath on his perineum and he can't help but jerk forward a little, having lost Sam's movement in the fog of nervous desperation that's ascended over him. Sam slaps his hip, not too hard but enough to sting.

"Stay still," he commands, and Dean freezes, whines just a little. "You stay where you are."  

He leans forward that last little space and tongues at the skin just underneath Dean's hole, avoiding his rim, and this time Dean really  _does_ whine, hips shifting up and down but not really going anywhere in particular, just in case Sam chooses to stop. He can  _feel_ Sam chuckle, the bastard, breathy and jittery, and his tongue flattens out and glides down, stops at the spot where his balls begin, licks back up to his hole, back and forth a few more times. It feels good but it's not enough and Sam  _knows_ it, too, knows he's being a shitty dickish tease. 

" _Sam_ , please," he says, and apparently Sam'd been waiting for him to plead, because he finally sets his mouth onto Dean's hole and sucks a filthy, wet kiss into it, tongue swirling around him behind the circle of his lips.

"Fuck, yeah, Sammy," Dean says. 

The edges of Sam's lips twitch in a satisfied smirk and his tongue keeps laving back and forth across the pinched skin, wet and so fucking good. Dean grinds back against his face helplessly, trying to get more, wanting Sam inside him, filling him up heavy and warm with fingers or tongue or, God, anything, and Sam just licks and slurps and teases his rim with a probing, wet tongue. He's imprecise and eager, sloppy with enthusiasm, and Dean can't get enough of his brother's lips on his asshole _,_ his chin wet with spit where it brushes against his balls. He takes a fold of skin between his teeth ever so gently, hardly pressing at all, and the sensation rockets bolts of pleasure up Dean's spine, his toes curling in the floor of the tub.  He tries to grip the tips of his clawed fingers into the smooth tile, get a hold on something, anything, just to squeeze and shed the tension in his shoulders, but it's flat and unyielding and he scrabbles around without accomplishing anything. Sam soothes the skin with little licks, waits until Dean's gone lax, and spears his tongue forward until he squeezes past the outer ring of muscle. 

" _Jesuschrist,"_ Dean yelps, shuddering all over. His dick twitches, neglected, and he brings one hand down from where it's supporting his head to reach at himself.

Sam withdraws his tongue and grabs Dean's hand before it even gets past his navel.

"Don't even think about it," he says.

"But -  _Sammy - ."_

"You don't get to touch yourself," Sam says. "Hands on the  _wall."_

His voice goes dangerous, threatening, and Dean jerks his hand away from his torso like it's gone red hot, slamming it back in front of himself. The words  _yes, Sir_ bubble up to his lips and he chokes them down just in time. He can't even imagine how insufferable Sam'd be if he called him  _Sir._

"Good boy," Sam says, and  _that's_  fuckin' humiliating, all right, but it makes Dean shiver dangerously, forces another sad little whimper out of his throat.

Sam kisses his lower back. "That right?" he says. "You gonna be a good boy for me?"

"Y- _yeah,"_ Dean says. 

Sam moves away, shuffles forward and back, and Dean has to stop himself from reaching out and pulling his brother back to him. There's the click of a bottle opening and then he's taking Dean's hand, spreading it open and drizzling something over his fingers, and the smell of Sam's flowery conditioner fills the small space.

"Why don't you show me," he says. "Show me how good you are, and open yourself up for me."

"Yeah, fuck, okay," Dean says. He snakes his lubricated hand back and around him in no time flat, and the position's a little uncomfortable, but the idea of Sam standing just inches away and watching him shoves any strain right out of his mind. He massages the conditioner around on his fingers to get them coated (creamy, a little oily), and rolls the tip of his index finger around his asshole.

"Put one in," Sam says, his voice deep and sex-roughened, breath stirring the fine hair at the very top of his thigh.

He's hardly inches away, then, Dean realizes, and he lets out a little choked-off moan as he slides his finger in to just the first joint. He works it in and out, gathering up more conditioner and forcing it into himself, slicking up his insides in preparation for more. He's already a little loose and wet from Sam's tongue, the heat of the shower around him, and his finger goes in without much help, sliding up to the last knuckle with no problem. It feels good inside him, pleasant insistent pressure, but the stretch isn't much at all and he eagerly pushes in a second, gets them both as far in as he can before the webbing between his knuckles forces him to stop. He keeps them stuffed up inside himself and wriggles them from side to side, scissors them as far apart as he can before they're forced back together again. It's better but still not enough. 

"Fuck, Dean, I wish you could see yourself," Sam groans behind him. "You're so - Christ. I wanna fuck you, please - can I fuck you - ?" 

"Fucking hell,  _yes,_ you asshole, _fuck me_  - "

Sam bats his hand away and places his own fucking giant ones on either side of his spread ass, both already wet with conditioner. He presses one huge thumb against his hole and slides it in easy, takes the thumb on his other hand and does the same, turns both and hooks them and pulls them out in opposite directions, tugging him open and gaping. 

"Sammy!" Dean cries. "Fuck,  _Sam - "_

Sam's breath clouds up hot on his perineum again and Dean's positive he can't take this any longer, he's gotta get Sam's dick in him right the fuck  _now_ or he might fucking die, and Sam pulls his thumbs impossibly wider and worms his tongue in between his them, deeper than he'd gotten before, lighting him up hot and slick inside. 

"Ah!" Dean says, and Sam trades one thumb for an index and middle finger, torquing them around and pressing up until he's found the perfect angle, fuck, sparks shooting up his spine and short circuiting his brain with every push, tongue still wriggling around near his entrance. Both of them are panting and Dean's spilling out a litany of needy moans without pause, burning up all over,  _please, Sammy, fuck me, please._  His cock's still as-of-yet untouched but it's still leaking from the tip, would be trailing strands of pre-come onto his thighs if it weren't for the water washing it all away too fast, hiding his desperation. He's right on edge, Sam's fingers inside him pushing him ever closer every time they graze over his prostate, tongue flexing between and keeping him on the good side of  _too much,_ so close, so fucking close, stomach tightening and twisting up to release, every movement tipping him forward just a little more - just a  _little more -_ _  
_

Sam removes his mouth and hands with a loud, sticky squeltch and Dean's left empty and bereft, hole clenching on air. He mewls pitifully, dragged back from coming by the skin of his teeth. Behind him he can hear Sam's hand slide against skin - slicking up his cock, Dean figures - and then the head of his dick's pressed up against his loose, slippery hole, and he has to clench his fists so as to not slam himself back. Sam waits, teasing himself up and down Dean's crack, head of his cock catching on his rim and almost, but not quite, dipping in.

"C'mon c'mon  _c'mon_ ," Dean chants.

Sam leans over his back and reaches up with one conditioner-wet hand, finds Dean's fingers with his own and twines them together. He uses his other hand to hold himself steady and finally, achingly, eases in just the tip.          

"Holy shit, you're tight,"he pants, pulling himself tortuously back out. "Gonna - "

" _Yeah,"_ says Dean. "Fuck me, please, c'mon."

Sam slides into him and Dean swallows him up, long slow dirty stretch pinning him open wide and wider. He's burning up inside, radiating heat and electric pleasure everywhere Sam touches him. Sam gives a couple experimental, jerky thrusts to work himself in deeper, hardly moving at all but the stretch is so hot and good and near fucking perfect, and Dean gives in at last and slams backwards. The pressure of his brother's cock filling him all at once is gut-wrenching, earth-turning, and the orgasm that Sam'd stolen from him earlier comes rushing forward with a vengeance, arching his back and stealing his vision, hips grinding back without his consent. He fucks himself empty on Sam's cock, come spattering onto the shower wall, totally untouched.     

His knees go weak and he'd probably've fallen if it wasn't for Sam snaring him around the waist and pulling him upright, one tense, strong forearm barred across his chest. He pounds into him with abandon, hand gripping his shoulder with intent to bruise, and Dean lets his head loll back to rest against the column of his neck. The slick-slide of Sam inside him is almost too much but he urges him on anyway, clenching around him and meeting him on the upstroke. Sam's relentless. He's forgotten gentle, forgotten caring and patient, everything lost but the need to take and claim and come. 

"Fuck, Dean, fuck," he whuffs, and he crushes himself in as far as he can one final time, hips stuttering. Dean can feel him come hard, shooting deep into his guts, and when he pulls away it begins to leak out of his well-used hole, trailing down his leg. It's a weird, uncomfortable feeling, having his brother's come sliding around inside him, and he'd like to clean himself out properly, only Sam doesn't feel like he's going to move any time soon - he's  _tightened_  his death grip around Dean's chest, actually, leaning into him like he's a pillar - but, he supposes, that's okay. He's comfortable underneath the warm water, Sam heavy and solid at his back, and he could stand to stay like this for just a bit longer. No skin off his back. 

Sam lets his head fall down onto Dean's shoulder, resting his moist forehead against the curve of his neck. He hums happily.

"Mm," Dean agrees.    

"I love -" Sam starts to say, only that's not something that Sam'd  _ever_ say, since he's a Winchester as stubborn as the rest of them. There's a feeling like a tape being rewound, the universe unspooling and reorganizing itself around him, and Sam hadn't ever said anything at all. 

Dean isn't sure if this was _supposed_  to happen, but he's also pretty sure it was one of those things he really shouldn't worry about, so he lets it go. He's stupid and complacent from orgasm and  _nothing_ about this can be wrong, not really, not when the water pressure's hot and steady and Sam's his to touch and please. 

And then the water goes ice fucking cold. 

" _Agh,"_ Dean says, diving out of the shower.

Sam cackles at him.

"Shut up, asshole, it's freezing," he says, wrapping himself in a towel.

"You were fine with it just a second ago."

"It wasn't fucking Antartic  _just a second ago."_

"It was like that for a while, man," Sam says, shutting off the shower and following him out. "I think all those concussions are catching up with you."

"Not my fault ghosts have a boner for chucking me into shit. Damn, Sammy, where'd we pick up these towels? They're awesome."

"Uh," Sam says. He stares blankly into the distance for a second and then says, "Home Goods?" 

"Wherever it was, let's go back and pick up, like, ten more. Damn."

"I'll add it to the shopping list."

"Fuck yeah, you will."

Sam still has about five hundred papers to grade and so he sets himself back up at the kitchen table with his red pen and folder, Dean perched next to him like an oversized, clumsy bird of prey, providing extremely helpful suggestions ("this kid's name is _Zephaniah?_ Ew. Automatic minus ten for that") and stealing sips of Sam's lukewarm coffee, leftovers from that morning.

The telephone goes off while Sam's in the middle of puzzling through a particularly nonsensical thesis.

"Hold that thought," Dean says, snagging the phone. "Yeah?"  

"Hiya, Dean. It's Sandra."

"Oh, uh - hi?" he says. He tries to place the name to a face and fails miserably. Hadn't Sam had the hots for a chick named Sandra once, way back when? No, shit - that was _Sarah_. Sandra's someone totally different. 

"From number sixteen?" she says, and _oh,_ yeah, right. Sandra. They'd met ages ago, at some shitty-ass welcome-to-the-neighborhood barbecue that the old lady across the street had hosted. It'd sucked majorly. Sandra was okay, though, a leggy brunette newlywed with two kids from a previous marriage and a decent sense of humor. They'd talked shit about the terrible top-forties pop hits that had been blasting out of the radio someone'd set up in the backyard and, as the party'd slumbered on around them, fallen deep into debate over gun manufacturers.

"Yeah, I know," he lies. "How're Jason and Yasmin doing?"

"That's actually what I was calling about - "

"Are they okay? Did something happen?" he says, jumping up. Sam looks at him in alarm, fumbling his pen.

"No, no, they're fine," she says. "It's just that Andy and I have reservations for a restaurant tomorrow - it's our anniversary - and Mathilde was supposed to watch the kids, except she cancelled, and Katherine and Taylor can't do it either, and Harold's out of town - "

"Yeah, I gotcha," he says, settling back down onto the table. "You need me to watch 'em?"

"I wouldn't normally ask, but we've been holding on to the reservation for months, and it's really important. I understand if you can't, it's just- ." She sighs. "Well, you're the last person I can think to ask. Everyone else is busy."

"So I'm your last choice, huh? I see how it is."

"I tried asking the guy who comes to pick up the garbage, and the hobo who hangs out behind the Seven-Eleven, but they said no, too. So here we are."

"Here we are," he agrees. "Sorry everyone flaked out on you. I'd be happy to pick up the slack, though."

"Really? It'd really be a lifesaver," she says. "Tomorrow at six okay?"

"Yeah, sure. You want me to come over there?"

"Unless you want 'em to tear around your place, yeah. You can bring Sam, too, if you want. Just make sure they don't kill each other or burn down the house and it's all fine."

"Sounds good to me. I'll see you then."

They trade farewells and hang up, and Sam turns toward him with _what was that all about_ plastered all over his face.

"Guess who's babysitting tomorrow," he sings.

Sam's expression turns to one of alarm. "What? Why?"

"Sandra's going on a date, and she needs someone to look after her kids. Turns out I'm just the man for the job." 

"Sandra? She the one with the poodle?"

"Nah, the one with the legs. Ow," he says, when Sam flicks him hard on the arm. "I'm just _identifying_ her so's you know which one she is."

"How about, _no, Sam, the one with the brown hair?_ Or,  _the short one?"_

"We know a whole buncha short people. You wouldn'tve known which I meant."

"Right, since we only know, like, two people with legs. Damn neighborhood's filled with amputees."  

Dean smacks him upside the head, and Sam pinches him, and it devolves from there until they're scrapping on the floor like children. 

"You sure you're fit to be a babysitter?" Sam asks, trapping him in a headlock. 

"Fucking ow, you asshole! I'm great with kids, and you know it."  

"Yeah, 'cuz you  _are_ one. Christ, no biting! You're just proving my point, idiot."

Dean removes his teeth from Sam's arm so he can stick out his tongue. "Bitch," he says. "Lemmee go."

"No. Jerk."

"I'll bite you again."

Sam gives him one last squeeze and lets him go. "I'm not surrendering, got it? I've just got work to do."

"Yeah, sure. You tell yourself that."

"You are good with kids, though, man," Sam says, dusting himself off and sitting back into his chair. "Seriously."

Dean shrugs. "Eh, not like it's hard. You just gotta keep 'em busy and they'll love you forever." 

"That's not even a little bit true. Dude, I  _suck_ at dealing with kids. Not everyone can do it."

"I'm not - whatever. It's not that special. I'm gonna start dinner," he adds, when Sam looks like he's about to say something else.

"What, you doin' something fancy?"

"Just a pot-roast. Wanna let it sit."

Dean _likes_ cooking. He's liked it ever since he was a kid and he could make Sammy's face light up with a decent macaroni casserole and a few baked brussels sprouts, and now that he has an actual kitchen, he's found that it's still pretty enjoyable to chop shit up and make something decent for his overgrown baby brother. It isn't _fun,_ per se, but it's relaxing, and he likes the way he can produce a result, how he can bring a bunch of random stuff together and whip up something that isn't half bad. He's still fucking awful at baking, but he figures that's just a matter of practice, same as with shooting and fighting and picking a lock. Someday he'll be able to put together a pie start-to-finish, flatten out his own crust by hand and season his own apples, create something delicious from a handful of spices and flour.

That's a long way away, though. Today, he'll focus on getting his pot-roast nice and tender.

Dinner comes out pretty okay, and they watch re-runs of Doctor Sexy on television until it's pitch-black outside, no moon or stars to be seen. Sam shuts it off at around ten, stating that he's  _sick of Dr. Sexy's stupid pouty face_ and that he has  _class early tomorrow, c'mon, Dean._ They curl up in their soft, pillowy bed face-to-face, Dean relaxing into the fold of Sam's arms around him, and they fall asleep clung together, Dean's hand gripping the folds of his brother's worn sleep shirt. It had been, he thinks, a good day.

 

He dreams he's kneeling at someone's feet, stone cold and bruising underneath his folded legs. He can't look up, or stand, or move at all, and there's a stifling pressure at the back of his skull.  _Sam,_ he tries to yell,  _Sam,_ but his lips won't move and his throat doesn't work and all he can do is scream into the silence of his own mind, anonymous leather shoes inches from his bowed head, hands white-knuckled against the ground. He can't see it but he knows that there's a rift in the world just behind them both, its energy expanding and pulsing closer with every panicked breath he takes, and he wants to yell out a warning, wants to fling them both out of the way to safety but he  _can't -_

He jolts awake. Sam's leaning over him huge and close, eyes wide and worried, his huge hands clasped on his shoulders.

"Dean?" he's saying. "Hey, man, wake up. Dean!"

Dean shakes him off, sitting up. "Ugh. What the hell - ?"

"You were having a nightmare, I think. Are you okay? You were thrashing around and yelling - "

"I'm fine, seriously. Move, so I can get back to sleep."

"You sure? You were - "

"I'm  _sure._ Don't you have class tomorrow or something?"

Sam grumbles but shifts away so Dean can shuffle around and pull the covers back up over himself. The dream'd disturbed him a little, sure, but it's not like he hasn't had worse - he'd been dealing with Hell-o-vision for years now, thanks, and if he can deal with that, he can deal with anything - so he's able to go back to sleep with little fuss, even as Sam's tossing and fussing around next to him. They don't come back together after the interruption and when Dean wakes up to the alarm clock the following morning they've drifted to opposite sides of the bed.

Sam tries to kiss him deep and slow but Dean's still tired and a little grumpy so he doesn't really reciprocate, falls back to sleep as soon as Sam pulls off him. The next time he wakes Sam's gone and according to the clock it's nearly noon.

"Fuck," he says, and kicks the blankets off with a grunt. Danny's gonna kill him.

His cellphone isn't on the bedside table, and it's not anywhere in the kitchen, either. He has to search through the pockets of three pairs of dirty, oil-stained jeans - and since when had he owned so many goddamn pairs of jeans? - until he finds it jammed underneath a crusty tissue and a couple candy wrappers. He flips it open and calls his boss.

"Uh, hey, Danny? It's Dean Winchester. Sorry, man, I slept in - "

"What? Okay?" Danny says. There are guys yelling in the background and the screech of the lift creaking up and down, someone operating a power drill. "Sure you slept in. Why're you calling?"

"I just, uh - should I come in anyway, or - ?" 

"Why would you - uh, it's Friday, right? Or did I - nah, it's Friday. You don't work on Fridays, remember?"

 Dean's sure this can't be right. He'd been thinking about it yesterday, when he was trying to figure out Sam's schedule, and he'd known for sure that both of them had work all day. But, thinking back, he can't  _ever_ remember working on a Friday. Not once. 

"Uh, yeah," he says, filled once again with the sensation that the world's shifted around him while he slept, and he's the only person who hasn't yet been notified of the change. "I - you're right. Sorry to bother you."

"Nn," Danny says, and hangs up on him.

He sits down on their soft bed and rests the phone in his lap, brain racing. Since yesterday, everything's been fucked up in an uncomfortable way, and he's not sure what to do. He  _wants_  to not worry about it, which is in and of itself worrying. Hadn't it been his job  _not_ to ignore these sorts of things? Hadn't he built his trade in investigating the stuff that made the average person go,  _well, that_ couldn'tve  _happened, so I won't think about it?_ Since when had he stopped concerning himself with the bizarre?

 _Since you purchased a house. Since you got a steady job._ He was part of a different world now, one without hunting and killing and paranoia, and it was about time he dropped the hyper-attentive attitude that was a necessity for hunting but acted as more of a burden than anything else now. He saw danger in everything, ghosts in every cold spot and skinwalkers in every mangy dog, and it wasn't such a stretch to believe he was imagining it here, too, where he was safe and sound,  _his_ house and  _his_ town, his simple, retired life. It probably wasn't anything, anyway, just a weird lapse in memory. He'd never worked on Fridays. It was a stupid thing to worry about.

He smooths down his hair and sets the phone on the nightstand, laughing at himself a little. It blindsides him still, how much of a wreck he can be over the littlest things. A tree taps against the window, a chain rattles, a dog barks, and he's ready to defend himself to the death, all of his senses gone on high alert, muscles tensed in anticipation of a fight. It's dumb as hell and he  _knows_ it, knows it makes no goddamn sense out here in the suburbs, but he can't stop himself from reaching for a knife every time a glass breaks, a woman laughs meanly, someone kicks a wall.

He hasn't talked to Sam about it and he doesn't plan to, but all at once he wants so badly to see his brother it's like a physical ache in his chest. They've been apart too long and he misses him, misses him like a gaping goddamn hole in his side, and what the hell, maybe he'll go in and surprise him for lunch once he's finished up his afternoon classes. That'd be fun.  _You just want to check up on him,_ his subconscious scolds, and Dean tells it to kindly shut the fuck up. That is  _not_ why. He'd just been rude this morning, is all, and he'd like to make up for it. Maybe they can go for a quickie in the broom closet. Now,  _that'd_ be awesome. 

He finds, serendipitously, they've got leftover Chinese in the refrigerator, and he wraps it up in a couple loose plastic bags and chucks it in the passenger seat of the Impala. The drive is about twenty minutes and he wants to fill up the time with his Rush mixtape (excellent driving music, in his opinion), except when he goes to pull it out of the tape box it's gone missing. Quite a few are absent, actually, some of his Lynnyrd Skynnyrd and absolutely all of his Twisted Sister tapes. He's got no idea where the fuck they could've gone, unless maybe Sam tossed them out, but he knows better than to mess with a man's music. 

"Goddammit," he curses. At least he's still got his Guns N'Roses, and Led Zeppelin. He pops Houses of The Holy into the tape deck and starts to tap his fingers against the wheel as  _The Ocean_ runs through the cab of the car.

The college isn't very large, even though it's a community gig, and altogether it takes up hardly three blocks' worth of town, just six or seven cement-grey buildings and a stretch of fenced-off field, and right beyond that, the dark of the void reaching out as far as the eye can see, grass and road and hill cut off abruptly by black emptiness, no smooth transition at all, just ground and sidewalk and then, like it's been snipped away by a pair of huge scissors, nothing at all. Dean doesn't like that Sam's working so close to the void but there's not much he can do about it besides hope his brother keeps his head and stays the hell away. He parks his baby just outside the lastmost building, where he knows Sam's teaching that day, and extracts himself from the car with the bag of Chinese in hand. He wonders, for a moment, what would happen if he ran over and dropped it into the void, but he's got a hungry Sammy to feed so he shakes off the urge and wanders inside.

There are a couple kids wandering around, plain-faced and grimly silent. They ignore each other and he proceeds unheeded up three flights of stairs to the small lecture hall where Sam's stuck spending the next ten minutes. He tries to sneak in the back and take a seat but Sam totally sees him.

"Um," Sam says to the class, making a sour face at him. "Which is why, uh, we see trends of commonality between monster origin tales inside a culture, like the self-imposed transformation of the Native American creatures."

A girl in the front raises her hand. "What about Rolling Heads?"

"Well, that's, um, an exception."

Dean raises his hand, too, and doesn't wait for Sam to call on him. "What the hell's a Rolling Head?"

The class titters. Sam scowls. "It's all in the reading for tonight," he says. "We're gonna have a discussion, so - yeah. Read up. And have a good weekend."

He tucks his papers into his bag and it's clear that class is dismissed. The noise in the room reaches a warm buzz and while Dean pads down the aisles to Sam's podium, everyone else files out the door.

"What're  _you_ doing here?" Sam says. Dean plops the bag of Chinese on his chair and wiggles his eyebrows.

"Figured I'd get you fed," he says. "You don't get much of a break in between classes today, right? So, here. What  _is_ a Rolling Head, though, seriously," he adds. 

Sam lifts out a container and pops it open. "'S the reanimated head of a woman who's been murdered by her husband. She rolls around and eats everyone who gets in her way."

"Ah. Cool. They real?"

"Not that I know of, but we thought vampires weren't real for a good twenty years at least, so who knows. Any chance you brought utensils?"

"Aw, shit," Dean says.

"Eh, s'okay. I'll just use my hands."

"Hey, look, you've got two pens right here," Dean says, grabbing them. "Flip 'em around, and -  _ta-da_! Chopsticks!"

"...No," Sam says. "I am not eating with pens."

"Like eating with your hands is any better. Whatever. Hope you like getting rice stuck under your fingernails, princess."

"Dude, those aren't even _my_  pens. I found 'em in the break room. They've got other people's germs all over 'em, probably."

Dean lifts one pen up to his lips and licks up and down it briskly. "Mmm," he says. 

" _Dude,"_ Sam says. "Gross."

"You're such a baby," Dean says, flicking his tongue at the cap. 

Sam's eyes are glued to his mouth. "Am not," he protests halfheartedly.

Dean gives him a long, sultry smile. "You know," he says, curling his tongue around the shaft of the pen and rolling it up and down, "if I remember right, I interrupted you this morning."

"Uh," Sam says.

"Yeah - you were kissing me, and I fell asleep on you," Dean says. "That was pretty rude of me." He sucks the pen into his mouth and purses his lips around it.

"Well, I mean - "

"I'm thinking I should make it up to you," he says around the pen, pressing it into his cheek so that it forces the skin to bulge up.

" _Dean -_ we can't - "

"No one's here," he says, crowding Sam back until his back's against the wall, shoulder pressed up against the edge of the blackboard. "'S just you and me." His hands find Sam's hips and slide around to the front of his slacks, pressing down on the warm arch of his cock.

Sam leans his pelvis forward but shifts his mouth away when Dean goes to kiss him. "Dean," he pants. "This is a terrible idea."

"Hmm," Dean agrees, nibbling the line of his jaw. He takes the carton of Chinese out of Sam's hand and sets it on the blackboard's ledge, praying internally that it'll fucking  _stay there._

"Dean," Sam protests, and Dean sucks at his neck, palm rubbing at the front of his pants. "This is really - "

Dean drops to his knees, carpet drumming against his jeans, and Sam shuts the fuck up. Dean smiles to himself and nuzzles the ridge of Sam's dick where it presses hot and full against his khaki preppy-ass teacher's slacks, rubbing him against his cheek and lips. He braces his hands on either side of Sam's hips for leverage, and undoes his zip with his teeth. Sam groans.

"What've we got under here, Professor?" Dean asks. "You gonna get your button 'n let me see?"

"Yeah, I - okay," Sam says, popping it open with one shaky hand. The other comes down to cup the back of Dean's skull, pulling him in closer, and Dean lets him, tipping his chin up to mouth Sam's cock through the thin, soft material of his blue-checked boxers. Sam's hand tightens in his hair.  

"Why don'tcha take that out for me," Dean says, lips forming the words right up against Sam's bulge. Sam shivers and maneuvers himself out of his boxers, thick and long and already a little wet at the tip. Dean leans right back in and licks up the slippery mess off his head, tonguing his slit playfully.

" _Dean,"_ Sam gasps. 

"Mm?" Dean says.

"Fuck, Dean, just suck me, please," Sam says.

"Well, okay," he says, and envelops him in the soft heat of his mouth, lips sealed tight. He gives a few experimental strokes of his tongue, lavishing attention on the thick bottom vein and getting as much of it wet with spit as he can before beginning to bob his head, firm, steady pressure all around. He loves the way Sam feels in his mouth, hot and solid and salty, head nudging the apex of his throat, and he brings one hand down from the wall to rub himself through his own jeans where he's half-hard and getting harder. He works his lips, trying to swallow as much as he can, but there's still a good three or four inches he can't quite seem to let in. Sam's loving it anyway, hips jerking, one hand gripping the blackboard's shelf white-knuckled and the other fisting rhythmically in Dean's hair, tugging his scalp.  

"Fuck - yeah, Dean, that's incredible," he says, low and amazed. "You're so - your lips, dude, fucking perfect - ." 

Dean's just about found his rhythm, wet slide in, teasing sweep of tongue, gentle, even suction, and then Sam drives his hips forward hard and sharp, ramming his cock against the soft, clenched muscle of Dean's throat. It takes him totally by surprise and he has to pull off, sputtering, eyes a little wet. Sam immediately pulls back and leans down to cup his face, smoothing his rough thumbs underneath Dean's watering eyes.

"Are you okay?" he asks, brows furrowed in concern.

"Never better," Dean rasps. "Hey, I'm fine - get back up, man, I don't wanna stop - "

"I'm so sorry," Sam's saying. "Jesus, dude, if I was going too hard, you shoulda said."

"You weren't, douchebag - hey, I'm serious. Look," Dean says, gesturing toward the bulge in his jeans. "You think I'm not enjoying this? I like it when you rough me up, c'mon."  

"Y-yeah?" Sam says.

"Hell yeah, you haven't noticed? I love that shit."

"Are you sure?" Sam says, straightening up. "I mean - "   

"So sure. G'won, Sammy, fuck my face," Dean orders. "I want you to. Choke me, c'mon."

He opens his mouth wide and sticks out his tongue, and Sam groans, taking himself in hand. Dean looks up at him through his eyelashes coyly and leans in.

"You'll tell me if it's too much, right? Promise?" Sam says. 

"Ugh, _yes,_ for fuck's sake. I'll punch you in the goddamn thigh, okay? Happy?"

"Yes," says Sam, and guides his cock between his brother's lips.

Dean makes sure to keep himself relaxed and open, letting Sam slide in bit-by-bit, hand venturing down to knead at the front of his jeans.

"Take it out," Sam says. "I wanna see you stroke yourself." He begins to rock his hips in and out of Dean's mouth, hardly more than an inch in either direction, silky skin heavy on his tongue. Dean unzips himself eagerly and pulls his cock out of his boxers, settling back on his haunches to give Sam a better view.

"Slowly," Sam says, and Dean complies, running his hand open-palmed against his cock, hardly providing himself any pressure at all. He doesn't want to come until Sam's pounding into him without restraint, desperate to finish, uncaring how badly he's hurting his brother. 

Sam seems to understand this because he starts speeding up, delving in deeper now. He slips the hand that had been cupping Dean's head down and around to the back of his neck, holding him in place, and thrusts in earnest, head of his cock nudging the back of Dean's throat. Dean can only hold on and take it, jaw beginning to ache at the strain, hand gliding up and down his dick faster in time with Sam's movements. Sam shoves in deep, deeper, until Jesus Christ his balls are nudging against Dean's chin and there's saliva drooling down sticky between them, and Dean's throat is spasming around him and tears are leaking down his cheeks but Sam's holding him firm and he can only stay where he is, helpless to stop it. He chokes and swallows and tries his best to breathe through his nose as Sam slams down his throat, unforgiving and careless, fingers clenched bruisingly at his neck, and Dean strips his cock madly.

"Close," Sam warns, "fuck, Dean, gonna come down your throat," and Dean yells, cock shooting hard onto the carpet, long, sticky ropes of semen pumping out of him. His brother follows soon after, cock twitching and jerking in between his lips, clogging his throat and flooding his mouth, enough of it that Dean can let some of it pour out onto his drool-slick chin, bubbling out from his lips.

Sam groans, softening cock twitching just a little in Dean's mouth. "You're gonna kill me, man. Holy shit." 

Dean zips himself up, swallows, pulls himself back on his feet. "You're welcome," he says, rubbing his fluid-covered face into Sam's chest.

Sam, in his post-orgasm haze, tolerates this for about four seconds. "Ugh! No! Quit that!"

"You got me all nasty. You owe me, c'mon."

"There are tissues on the podium! Get off!" 

"Ugh. Fine."

"You came on my shoe, asshole," Sam says, looking down at it with distaste. "I still got two more classes to teach."     

"Yeah, and I gotta go look after some kids."

"You got  _plenty_ of time until then, who cares. You can go home and wash, but I'm stuck here with your spunk all over me in front of a buncha undergrads."

"Aw, I think it's a good look for you, Sammy. Matches the sweater."

"Fuck off. Seriously, go home. I've got like - ten minutes until the next class starts."

"Then I ain't leaving for ten minutes. C'mon, we've got Chinese food to eat."

They settle into two of the desks in the front row, food spread out over their laps, and trade containers back and forth until there isn't anything left. Dean gives up on his pens and transfers chunks of chicken into his mouth with his fingers, listening cheerfully as Sam complains about the number of questions he's gotten about _Twilight-_ style vampire mythology ("it's not accurate anywhere, you idiots. You aren't gonna have a pretty sparkly vampire husband to knock you up"), and the influx of awful papers he's been getting. Dean sits and listens, swallows down greasy, cold noodles and thinks about how he wouldn't rather be anywhere else in the world.

They get hardly five minutes to eat before the door nudges open and a nervous, pimply-faced teenager slinks through and sets up in one of the back seats, cellphone in hand. 

"Okay, man, you really gotta go now," Sam says, setting down his food. "You can't just hang out in here, and you probably don't wanna hear me lecture about Troriband garden culture anyway."

"Fine, you want me gone that bad - " 

"That's not - ! You can't just sit in on a lecture! It's against the rules! You shouldn't even be in this building!"

"I'm just kidding, dork. I'll see you later."  He darts in and gives Sam a peck on the cheek before he can scoot away.

Sam bats at him grumpily. "Not here! Hey!" 

Dean shoots him a grin and a cheeky wink and bounces out of the room, weaving his way through the steady stream of entering students. They aren't talking or even looking at each other, and it strikes him as a little odd, but maybe they're just dreading Sam's class, the brats. 

"Hey," he calls to a girl outside the classroom. "Yeah, you. C'mere."

She has thin, dirty-blonde hair, and unfocused grey eyes. She stares at a point somewhere just beyond Dean's shoulder, as if it'd take too much energy to meet his eyes. She holds her arms stiff and motionless at her sides. 

"Yes?" she says, in an odd, dull tone.

"Um," he says. "You take this class with Sam - er, Professor Winchester?"

She blinks, slowly and deliberately, like she'd had to think about it first. "Yes," she says. 

"Uh. You like him okay?" 

"Professor Winchester is excellent," she says, as if she's reading off a card. "His course is a comprehensive study of indigenous cultures, including those in the Philippines and - "

"Got it, thanks," he says. "I'm glad you like it."

"...Yes," she says, after a moment's deliberation. "I do like his course. It is very enjoyable."

"Good to hear. I'll, um, let him know." 

He waves and turns to leave, but she grasps his forearm with slender, ice-cold fingers. "You know him personally? You are Dean, are you not?" 

"Yeah, that's me. How'd you know?" 

"He speaks of you often."

"What, during his anthro lectures?"

"Yes," she says, dead-faced. "He cares for you very much."

"Uh. Thanks? I guess?" 

"Yes," she says, turns, and walks into the classroom. The door shuts behind her and the noise rings loud in the silent hallway, empty except for Dean.

"Well, _that_ was fuckin' weird," Dean says. "Fuckin' smartass college students." 

He sees no one else in his journey back downstairs, and there's no one outside, either. He could swear that the void's creeped closer to the athletic yard, swallowing up a few feet of bush and scrub, and he drives his baby away from it in relieved hurry. As far as he knows, the thing hasn't eaten anyone yet, but he really ought to do some research, make sure Sammy's okay teaching so close to it. Probably it's nothing. Probably he should stop jumping at shadows.   

He gets home pretty quick, determined to get in a shower before he has to go and watch over Sandra's kids. He's got, what, four hours until he has to meet up with her, but he doesn't want to take any chances. He wants to get his due, goddammit. His knees are achy and rubbed raw and he's pretty sure he's got dried semen in his hair. Maybe that's why that girl was being so weird - she'd spotted it and figured out the shit they'd been getting up to right before class. He really fucking hopes that isn't the case.

 

Sam gets home at five, parking the Jetta on their driveway (by unspoken agreement, only the Impala gets the place of honor in the garage). He greets Dean with a kiss and flops onto the sofa with a sigh, turning on the television.

"Your students seem weird to you?" Dean asks, sitting next to him and throwing his legs over his lap.

"Oof. No? Why d'you ask?"

"Just wondering. They're all so... quiet. And the one I talked to was really, I dunno, formal."

"You _talked_ to one of them?" Sam yelps, shoving his legs off his lap.

"Hey! Sure I did, s'not illegal," Dean says, kicking them right back on. "I mean, it isn't, is it? _Is_ it?"

"No, Dean, it's not illegal to talk to college kids. Wish it was sometimes, though," he grumbles.  

"Aw, baby, tough day at the office?" Dean teases, and then they watch Wheel of Fortune until it's about time for Dean to head over to Sandra's.

"Want me to come with?" Sam offers. 

"Nah, I'll do it. Don't want your clumsy ass in the way."

"Be good! And  _don't swear,"_ Sam hollers after him.

It's a short walk, just a few houses down to the right. He knocks on the door, and Sandra answers right away. 

"Hey, Dean," she greets him. 

"Oh, wow," he says. "You look great."

She really does, lips ruby red and smiling, hair in soft curls down her shoulders, and once upon a time Dean'dve grinned at her salaciously, given her a slow once-over, but now he realizes he's got zero desire to get into her pants at all. He feels more like a fond uncle than anything else. It's a little disconcerting.

"Thanks," she says, striking a pose. "The dress is a Sherri Hill, can you believe it?"

It's sparkly and long and silver, and, uh. It sure is a dress. 

"Um," he says. "No?"

"I don't get to dress up that often, so, hell, might as well splurge. I just love shit with glitter on it, don't you?"

Holy shit, Dean realizes. She's totally pegged him as the Harmless Gay Next Door Neighbor.

He's saved from answering when her husband appears over her shoulder. He's a nervous-looking guy with thick glasses and a cardigan stupid enough to rival Sam's, and he looks like he doesn't want to get too close to Dean.  

"Babe, we gotta get going," he says.

"Right - Dean, bedtime's at eight-thirty. There's mac n'cheese to heat up in the refrigerator, and a little salad, if you can get 'em to eat it. There're Wii games and movies in the cabinet, and, _okay, Andrew._ We'll see you later."

They scram, and Dean wanders into the house, where he finds Yasmin and Jason sitting on the sofa in the living room. They both have their Mom's big brown eyes and thick lashes, and dark, tightly-curled hair that must come from their Dad. Jason's glued to the television screen, but Yasmin looks up at him when he comes in.

"You're Dean," she tells him.

"That's me," he says. "What'cha watching?"

"Ponies," she says. "Jason likes the one with the rainbow hair, but I like the pink one." 

He plops down next to her. "I like the purple one better, myself," he says.

"She's boring," Yasmin says, and they have a lively debate about ponies until Dean decides he should be a responsible adult and force them to eat dinner. Yasmin declares she hates macaroni more than anything and won't eat it anymore, so they raid the cabinet together for edible dinner items and come up with tortilla chips and one can of tomato soup, extra large.

"Tortilla soup!" Dean says.

They look at him like he's nuts.

"Aw, man, you've never had tortilla soup?" he says, like it isn't a thing he'd invented when he was ten and running out of money and had to convince his crabby little brother to eat tomato soup for the sixth meal in a row. He warms up the soup on the stove and they crush a layer of tortilla chips into three little bowls, Jason warming up to him as he helps smash up the chips in his chubby little hands.

"We got any cheese?" Dean asks, pouring soup on top of the chips. Yasmin fetches him a block of cheddar from the refrigerator and he grates it over the soup, hers and Jason's and then his own, and they sit down at the table to eat. It tastes like frigid rooms in a house they aren't paying to stay in, mice in the cupboards, three sweaters at once to keep in the heat. He's glad these kids will grow up miles and miles away from all that, cared for and warm and able to refuse a dinner they don't want without the fear of going hungry. If Sandra knew how he'd grown up, he wondered, would she have let him watch her kids?   

"Better than mac n'cheese?" he asks them, and they nod enthusiastically, even though he's pretty sure it's kinda gross.

They eat their soup and dump the dirty dishes in the sink, and then both kids take turn kicking his ass at something called Super Smash Brothers Brawl. Yasmin hardly clears his knee and she's wearing a sparkly pink plastic princess crown and she's absolutely vicious with a controller in her hands.

"You're bad at this," Jason informs him, sometime after his character's been dribbled offscreen and blown up probably twenty times. "Let's play Dance Dance."

"S'called Just Dance, dummy," Yasmin says.

" _Hey,_ wouldja look at that. It's bedtime," Dean says.

"'M sleepy. Can we play Dance Dance tomorrow?" Jason says, tugging at his pants.

" _Just Dance."_

"Uh. Sure, buddy," Dean says. "Let's get our pajamas on, okay? Last one upstairs's a rotten egg - "

They burst off the sofa and scramble upstairs, Yasmin losing her princess crown somewhere along the way. He trudges after the both of them, twirling it in his hands. God bless little kids and their stalwart sense of competition.

"Who won?" Jason yells as his sister charges into the bathroom, shedding her pants as she goes.

"You both got up here before I did, so - both of you, I guess. Jeez. You're really fast, man."

"Miss Jocelyn says I'm the fastest in the class."

"Who's that?"

"My teacher," Jason says, the  _duh_ implied heavily in his tone. "She's really pretty."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. She has two dogs and - "

"Hey, you can tell me all about Miss Jocelyn when you get your pjs on, okay?"

"I got Batman jammies."

"Neat. Get 'em on, and lemmee see."

Yasmin bids them both good night and goes off to her room on her own, teeth freshly brushed and nightgown donned. Jason's a little more high-maintenance, and Dean sits up with him and chats for a good half-hour before the kid finally passes out. He goes down to the kitchen, washes the dishes, and fiddles around a little more with Super Smash Brothers.

Sandra returns with her husband towed behind her just after ten, both of them exhausted and vague around the edges but thoroughly happy.

"Thanks so much," Sandra says, and gives him a peck on the cheek. "I owe you one. Were they good?"

"Yeah, they were great," Dean says. "No problems at all. They wouldn't eat your macaroni, though."

"Ah, shit. Did they eat anything, or - "

"I made 'em some tomato soup, don't worry. They seemed to like that okay."

"Oh, good," she says. "Hey - I hate to just kick you out, but - "

"Nah, I totally get it. Hafta check on Sam, anyway," he says, only half-kidding.

"Aw, you two are so sweet. Tell him I said hi."

"Will do. See you round?"

"Mmyup. Have a good night."

The walk back home is dark and eerie, the silent, still road, the empty sky. He's half expecting to be blindsided by some invisible enemy, to feel teeth latch around his throat and claws dig into his chest, and he keeps his guide up the whole way, skin prickling and twitching at every rustle and rush of wind. When he finally reaches his own front door he's sweating all over, tense and ready for imagined conflict, and the feeling doesn't go away when he enters the house.

"Woah," Sam says, looking up from the sofa. "You okay?"

"'M fine," he grunts, plopping down next to him. "Just need to sit down."

"You sure, man? The hell did those kids do to you?"

"Hey, remember tortilla soup?"

"Uh. What? Dean, are you - "

"Made that shit up all on my own," Dean says over him. "Surefire way to get you to eat. Don't tell me you don't remember."

"Uh - yeah, I do, but Dean - "   

"Made it for the kids tonight, s'all. They seemed to like it okay. Tasted just about the same as it did when we were little." 

"Ugh - don't tell me you ate that shit," Sam says, scrunching up his face. "I _still_ can't stomach tomato soup. Or peanut butter."

"So picky," Dean teases.

"Hey, fuck off. We had peanut butter and  _nothing else_ for, like, two weeks in a row. No one can come back from that."

"Yeah, I - . Sorry."

"What? Nah, dude, you did your best," Sam says, sliding an earnest hand onto his shoulder. "I mean, tortilla soup? That was culinary genius. And who can forget your peanut butter spaghetti?"

"Ha. If only I _could_."

"Yeah, that maybe wasn't so great. But in the end, we were fed, y'know? And that was all you. So don't beat yourself up, dickweed."

Dean makes a grumpy, unconciliatory sort of noise, and Sam drags him into a hug, smooshing his nose into his cheek. Dean tries to flail away but Sam just holds him tighter, stubble rough where it rubs against his face.  

"I was thinking," Sam says, lips moving against his jaw, "maybe - we could go on a date?"

"Uh," says Dean, pulling out of his arms. "What?"

"We've got tomorrow off, right? And Sandra and Andrew went, so maybe - "

"Dude. I don't need to be  _romanced."_

"No one  _needs_ to be romanced. Just thought it might be nice."

"Okay, let me rephrase that: I don't  _want_ to be romanced."

"You're no fun," Sam says, pouting.

"Holy shit, man. If you really want to fuckin' wine and dine me that bad, go ahead. You do know you already got an all-access pass, right?"

"That isn't the point. I want to, um." Sam blushes. "Just - please, Dean? Let me do this for you?"

"Fuckin' hell, fine," Dean snaps.

Sam gives him an enormous grin. "It'll be great, man, I promise. Tomorrow, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," Dean says, and kisses him. "Tomorrow." 

 

That night, he dreams that he's being held up against a wall. There's something he needs to do, something about a spell, and he struggles ferociously to get free. There's a man standing in front of him with his back turned, sensible dress pants and long tan trenchcoat, messy dark hair, and Dean thinks, _Cas_. 

 _"Hey,"_ he yells. " _Cas! Help!"_

Castiel turns to face him, placid and unhurried. He opens his mouth, about to speak, and Dean wakes up. 

"Cas," he says to Sam, who's clinging to his shoulder, worried.

"What? What about him?" 

"I dunno, I just - heh," he says. "Dreaming about him. Don't think that's happened before. S'weird. Wonder how he is."

"Who, Cas?"

"Mm. Doesn't come down to chat anymore, huh?"

"He's busy in heaven, probably," Sam says. "Doing leadership stuff."

"Heaven," Dean echoes. It drudges up old memories, things Cas'd said in between battles. "Wasn't there a war or something going on?"

"I don't think so," Sam says.

"Nah, there was, wasn't there? With the Ninja Turtle angel - not Michelangelo, the other one."

"Raphael?"

"Yeah, him! Weren't they fighting?"

"Cas took care of that pretty quick, remember?"

"Um. Yeah, I - yes?"

His head feels fuzzy and odd again, his thoughts snaking sluggish through his mind. Whenever he tries to think about Raphael and angel wars his brain slows down to a crawl, skull crushing inward and bearing down on his memories. Cas'd kicked Raphael's ass, he thinks. Yeah. 

"Hope Cas's okay," he murmurs, head falling back. He's asleep before it hits his pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i imagine dean's a lot like my kid brother like he has to ask for help to spell words like 'won't' and 'friendship' but put him in front of an engine and he'll fuckn rock that shit


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tHIS CHAPTER IS SO FCUKEN SHORT i got fed up with it oh well. ive discovered i don't much enjoy writing "date scenes"

Saturdays are lazy, languid, and Dean'd planned on spending all of this one in his sweatpants and undershirt, which is why he's understandably upset when Sam tries to force him into a button-up dress shirt sometime late in the afternoon.

"Don't wanna," he says, chucking the nicely ironed shirt back in his brother's face. 

"Dean, you said you would," Sam says, catching it.

"What? Did not."

"Our date," Sam reminds him. "You promised."

"Ughh," Dean says. "Is that  _now?_ Can't it be later? Like, next week? Or never?" 

"It's now," Sam says. "I got a - well, it's a surprise, but it's happening now, so. Put on the damn shirt."

Dean puts on the damn shirt. It's got purple stripes and long sleeves and he fucking hates it  _so much._

Sam opens the Jetta's passenger side door for him and Dean tries to glare through his goddamn stupid head. It doesn't work, and he's forced to throw himself into the seat with Sam's hand holding the door open the entire time. While he's getting himself settled, he kicks his brother on the shin on principle. 

"Ow! What was  _that_ for?"

"Not a girl," Dean grumbles.

"I'm trying to be  _nice,"_ Sam says, crossing over to the other side of the car. 

"Well, quit it," Dean says. 

They get going. To his delight, all that seems to be on the radio is a mix of Led Zeppelin, Rush, and Guns N'Roses, and he accepts that as proper cosmic payback. To his surprise, Sam doesn't fight with him over the dial, which is also more than okay in his book. He's not forgiven, though. Not by a long shot. Kid's gonna have to do a helluva lot more to make up for  _holding his door open for him._ The  _nerve._

They pull into the parking lot of a large, chrome-and-neon steakhouse. RED JACK'S, reads the sign, over top the outline of a large lit-up cowboy's hat.   

"Well? C'mon," Sam says. He doesn't try and open Dean's door for him, thank God, though he does reach for his hand once they're out of the car. Dean snatches it away and Sam gives him the saddest, most pathetic puppy-dog eyes in his arsenal.

"Goddammit," Dean snarls, and grabs his stupid fucking bitchy little brother's hand with his own. Sam beams the whole way through the parking lot.

Inside the restaurant's dark and smoky and lit with more red neon lights, and it smells fucking amazing. Dean inhales deep through his nose and Sam chuckles fondly.

"Best steak in the state," he says.

"How haven't we gone here yet? Holy shit, Sam."

Sam's distracted by the lady who comes bustling up to them, clipboard in hand. She's got the same distant, glassy eyes as the student Dean'd spoken to at the college, and the same slack expression.

"Hi," Sam says. "We have a reservation?"

"Last name," she says.

"Winchester."

She checks her clipboard. "Table for two. This way, please."

They weave through the floor of the restaurant. It's crowded, near bursting, and there's a low rumble of conversation over the soft background music (The Ocean, Dean realizes, to his amusement), but no one seems to be eating.  

Their table is glass-topped and round, and it has a large white candle in the center, flame flickering gently in the chill of the restaurant. Dean hops up into his chair and immediately rests his elbows on the table.

"Dean!" Sam says. 

"Whaa-aat," Dean says, slouching.

"It's a nice place, dude. Quit it."

"Yes, mom."

Dean orders the biggest steak JACK'S offers from their unexceptional waiter, as well as a bowl of their mac and cheese. The menu doesn't have prices, which doesn't bode well, but Sam's paying, so to hell with it. He's got his fat professor's salary to lean back on and Dean's gonna get whatever he wants.

Sam tries to order some froofy grilled chicken salad, but Dean browbeats him into getting a steak, _because it's a fucking steak joint, Sammy._ Can't get a special reservation at a steakhouse and not actually eat the thing they're named after. It's common sense.

Their food shows up near instantly. Dean's steak is so enormous it needs a platter to hold it up, and it's steaming and dripping with juices and generally looking like the tastiest thing he's ever seen in his entire life. Sam's steak is significantly smaller, but it's equally as delicious-looking, pink in the middle and thick all throughout.

"Oh, man, come to papa," Dean says to his plate.

"Told you," Sam sings.

" _You_ didn't tell me shit," Dean says, cutting off a hunk with his knife. "You just said,  _put on this shirt, Dean. Get in the car, I've got candy."_

"That's not - I didn't say anything like  _that."_

"No, I distinctly remember you telling me, _I got a puppy in here for you, too. Just gotta get into the van -_ oh, holy _fuck,_ Sam, this  _steak."_   

It's savory and rich, melting on his tongue, and he thinks it actually might be the best he's ever had in his life. 

"S'good, Sammy," he moans around a mouthful. "Unh. So good." 

"You want me to get you two a room?"

"Maybe you should, 'cuz I'm gonna make love to this fucking steak. Holy shit. Where's the chef? I wanna kiss him to show my thanks. Maybe blow him. Mmf. _Oh_. Wow."

"Hey, you're on this date with  _me,"_ Sam says.

"Dude, try your steak. It'll change your mind, trust me. You two can go off into the sunset together."

Sam declares his meal  _satisfactory,_ which Dean thinks is a major understatement, but whatever. Trust the kid not to appreciate the good things in life.

It takes a while for him to notice, but midway through their dinner, Dean realizes they're still the only ones in the restaurant with food in front of them. He has to set down his fork for a moment. 

"'S kinda weird, don't you think?" he asks.

"Huh? What is?"

"No one else is eating."

Sam stares at him, forkful of steak halfway to his mouth. "Um, yes they are?"

"No, they - ."

There's a tug at his gut, his stomach wrenches, and he remembers, with vivid clarity, coming in and seeing the woman at the table closest to the door biting into a handsome-looking hamburger. He looks and there are people eating all around them, steaks and mashed potatoes and soup, someone with a plate of pancakes, someone else with a bowl of oatmeal. That doesn't seem right, but -  _but,_ he can't figure out why he'd thought no one else had been eating, and if he can't decide that - . How can he be right about anything? How can he decide what's real, and what isn't?

"What's wrong with me," he says, bringing his hands up to cling at his face. His head's got that pressure-cooker feeling again, hot and compressed and raw, hard to think, and everyone's eating around them. Everyone's eating around them and _they always had been_ and somehow he'd forgotten it.

Sam's hands clutch into his shoulders and when he looks up they're face-to-face, close enough to kiss.

"Hey, breathe with me," Sam's saying, and he does, in and out and in until his heart's slowed down and his head's cleared out.

"You okay?" Sam asks. No one pays them any attention, not even the waiters, even though Sam's standing in front of him with his arms wrapped around his neck and he was hyperventilating just a second ago like a goddamn crazy person. Sam runs his fingers through Dean's hair, grounding him and calming him all at once.

"Fine," Dean says. The panic's fading from his mind, and he can hardly remember what it was even about - something about eating? A crowd? He doesn't know. It doesn't matter.

"You wanna go home?" Sam says.

"No! No, really. I'm okay. Let's have our date, okay?"

"Dean, you don't have to - " 

"Seriously, I'm okay," he says. "'Sides, not ready to leave my girl yet." 

"Your - oh," Sam says, as Dean nods at his steak. "Well, if you're sure. Just - "

"Yeah, yeah, I'll start crying if I need you. Scoot."

Sam gives his hair one last pat and draws back, brow wrinkled with concern. He slides into the seat opposite but doesn't pick up his knife and fork, choosing instead to scrutinize his brother across the table. Dean puts on a show for him, shoveling gross amounts of macaroni into his mouth and making happy, I'm-enjoying-this noises. 

"Pig," Sam says, but it's fond, and he resumes eating. 

 

By the time they get home, night's already folded in around their small neighborhood, and when Sam shuts off the Impala all they can make out in the dark are indistinct, blurry shapes, other people's cars and the edges of houses. Just the other night Dean'd found it threatening, hostile, and he still gets that impression, but with Sam at his side, his warm, heavy weight, he doesn't feel he has to tighten his guard. 

Still, he's relieved to get into the house. All he'd really done that day is go to a restaurant and back, but it's left him peculiarly tired, and all he wants to do is curl up with Sam in his sinfully comfortable bed and get his leaden limbs some rest. He kicks his shoes underneath the kitchen table without bothering to unlace them.  

"Hey, that wasn't so bad now, was it?" Sam says, only Dean's using his last functioning brain cell to undo the buttons on his horrible purple-striped shirt, so he just kinda hums at him. There's one particularly tricky button about midway down and he just - can't get it -  

Sam gets close, brushes his hands aside and slips the troublesome button through without any struggle.

"Oh," Dean says, wobbling. "Sammy. You're a genius."

"Yeah?" Sam says. "'Cuz I can undo buttons?"  He rests one warm hand on Dean's waist and undoes the rest of them one-handed.   

Dean closes his eyes and leans forward until his head's resting on Sam's shoulder. It's not the most comfortable shoulder in the world - pretty bulky, and muscle-y - but he's exhausted and it'll do. 

"Gotta fatten you up," Dean murmurs into the fabric of his shirt. Sam smells really good. Mmm. 

"What?" says Sam. "Dude. If you fall asleep here, I'm dumping your lazy ass on the sofa." 

"'M not sleeping."

Sam gets the last button unhooked, and pulls the shirt down around Dean's arms. "Sure," he says, tugging his hand out of the sleeve. "Of course you aren't."

His hands go down to the zip of his pants, and  _this_ wakes Dean up a little bit. "Tired," he complains. "'F you want to, go ahead. But I'm gonna check out."

"I'm not gonna - ugh. Step outta your pants, idiot." 

Obligingly, he does, leaning most of his weight against Sam since he's pretty sure he'd tip over otherwise. Once the pants are off Sam turns him so he can slip an arm around his shoulders.

"Walk," says Sam, and they do, Sam supporting him like he's drunk too much and he can't quite walk home on his own. He collapses face-first onto the bed as soon as it's within range, his arms sprawling akimbo. 

"G'night," Sam says, voice fond, and then he slips into sleep. 

 

On Monday, the alarm doesn't go off when it's supposed to. They both sleep until nine and Dean's got more than enough time to get ready and head over to the garage, but Sam's still tangled up in the covers and  _he_ was supposed to start teaching a class hours ago. 

"Sam! Fuck!" Dean says, shaking him.

"Ungh. Go away," Sam says into the pillow.

"Dude, it's nine! You gotta get to the college, c'mon!"

"Nuh-uh. Void ate it. N'more school," Sam says, and falls back asleep.

"What?" says Dean. Sam just snores at him and refuses to answer, so he wanders into the kitchen and makes himself a bowl of cereal. It's the good stuff, with marshmallows in it. He peers out the window and it doesn't  _look_ like anything's different - there's no ominous black smoke on the horizon, no lightning storms and dying plantlife. He figures it's probably okay.

Sam lopes into the kitchen half-dressed, scratching his belly. "Go get me the newspaper," he slurs, and puts his head down on the table.

"Get it yourself, bitch," Dean tells him, and leaves the table to go get it for him. 

As always, it's sitting on their front porch, folded up and not terribly thick, since not much actually ever happens in this town. Dean bends and picks it up. 

LOCAL COLLEGE SWALLOWED BY VOID, the headline declares. Other articles include MINOR FIRE AT STAR DELI and MAIN STREET CRAFTS FAIR STILL GOING STRONG.  

"Huh," Dean says. "Well, I'll be."

He brings the paper inside and Sam snatches it from him as soon as he's nearby. "Oh, the craft fair's still going on," he says. "Maybe we could go down there and see if there's anything neat."  

"Aren't you concerned?" Dean asks. "About the whole thing with the void? You don't have a job anymore, man."

A starburst of pain lances through his skull, and he makes a face. Sam's on him in an instant.

"You okay?" he asks, and Dean grits his teeth, nods. It's the first time it's happened since their date on Saturday and he'd been hoping that'd be the end of it - but of _course_ it wasn't, because he's a goddamn walking bad-luck-magnet.    

"I'm fine. Really. Go read about craft fairs or whatever the fuck, Samantha."

He forgets the pain and its cause during Sam's subsequent bitch-quest, and he's perfectly fine with it. 

 

The void moves quicker after that. On Wednesday, Dean wakes to find it's crept in to overwhelm Danny's garage, and he no longer has to go to work either. He and Sam spend the day sitting on the porch and playing poker, using jellybeans as their stakes. At some point Yasmin bicycles by and demands to be let in on their game, so they teach her how to play and let her beat them a couple times. She leaves with a huge smile on her face, a number of jellybeans richer.

"Share with your brother!" Dean yells after her, and Sam laughs.

"She's cute," he says.

"Aw, all kids are cute."

"You ever think about it? Havin' a kid?"

Dean chokes on the cherry jelly bean he'd been chewing on. "Excuse me,  _what?"_

"You seem to like 'em, right? Maybe we could make room for a new kid, y'know?"

" _We?_ Sam. You're saying you wanna -  _you wanna have a kid with me?"_

"Well, adopt one, but yeah. Hey, man, it's just a suggestion," Sam says, when Dean looks at him with murder in his eyes.

"We aren't getting a kid. No. Absolutely not. For one thing, dunno if you forgot, but we're  _brothers._ Also, wanted criminals."

"Not anymore," Sam points out. "Government thinks we're dead, remember?"

"Yeah, whatever, that's semantics. What I mean is, we've killed people - "

"Killed  _monsters - "_

"Killed  _people,_ and we've spent most of our lives murdering shit, so we really aren't father material, okay? I couldn't do that to a kid."

"Do  _what?_ You'd be an awesome father."

"Yeah, okay," Dean scoffs. "Sure I would. The screaming nightmares and the, the paranoia, those are great traits for a dad to have. Sign me the fuck up."

"Nightmares aren't a  _trait._ You're selling yourself short, man. Just think about it, okay?"

"Sure, okay," Dean says. He watches Yasmin do loops around her house on her bicycle, and is glad for her sake that she isn't his daughter. 

That night he dreams he's chasing a little boy through a blackened landscape.  _"Stop,"_ he yells, except the boy won't listen, just keeps on running, his sneakers flailing hard against the burnt ground. He chases him through the twisted, charred remains of trees, past the smoking, hollowed-out carcass of a building, begging him the whole while to stop, please, come back, I'm sorry. The boy trips and stumbles and loses one of his shoes, scrapes his shins and elbows raw, and then dives up again, legs pumping even harder than before. Something moves, a huge dark shape lurching out from the charcoal trees, and Dean yells,  _look out,_ except it's too late and the thing's got its maw closed around the boy's head, snapping shut like a trap, and his little body falls backwards with a thump, a comic puff of dirt. The thing is huge and inky black, its form shifting and changing as it goes but retaining that horrible, gaping mouth, rows and rows of gnashing teeth with scraps of flesh and bone caught in between, eyes that are in one moment huge and watery and humanoid, the next bifurcated at the pupil, lidless, black as the rest of it.

Dean knows he can't fight it - it's caught up with him so he's dead, that's just the way it is - but he braces himself anyway, takes out a knife from his belt ( _your last knife,_ his brain informs him, and he clutches it harder). The thing slithers toward him on legs that are stubby and elongated and clawed, legs bristling with quills and smooth as rubber, ending in a point or a stump or a many-fingered human hand. It smells like burnt hair and putrid, rotting organic matter, and it's close enough that he could touch it, if he were to reach out his arm. He readies his knife, falls into a fighter's stance, and wakes up.

He doesn't talk about it, even when Sam gives him his most concerned, sympathetic eyes.  _It's just a dream,_ he tells himself, and lies next to his brother awake until the early hours of the morning.    

The next day, he wakes up and goes outside to get the newspaper only to find that their walk cuts off into black only a couple feet from the front porch. 

ALL OF NEIGHBORHOOD CONSUMED BY VOID, the newspaper says. WINCHESTER HOUSE ONLY SURVIVING PROPERTY. After that there are a bunch of random numbers and letters and a spectacularly blurry photo of the numbers on their front door, upside-down and backwards.

"Well, shit," Dean says. He does the only thing which he can think of, which is to cock his arm back and wing the paper into the dark as far as he can. It flutters briefly and is swallowed up forever. Then, he turns and walks back into the house and yells for his brother.

Sam's waiting for him at the kitchen table, mug in hand. He looks disturbingly unaffected, face open and unwrinkled. "Hey, Dean," he says.

"Uh, hey. You looked outside, lately?"

"Yeah. Didn't think it'd get this far in."

"Yeah, me neither. Oh,  _fuck - "_

"What? Dean, what - " 

" _Baby,"_ he says, scrambling right back out the door.

"Dean! Careful!" Sam yells.

It'd only been minutes since he went indoors but since then the void's crept up closer still, black and stifling all around the house, and Dean has to press himself against the siding to get to the garage. He struggles to get a good grip on the door to slide it open, hurtling through as soon as there's a gap wide enough for his body.

"Thank fuck," he says. The Impala's still there, solid and whole as ever, and he leans a comforting hand against her. If she got lost to the void - hell, Dean doesn't know what he'd do. Probably throw himself in after her. 

Sam comes in up behind him and he realizes, no, he couldn't, not as long as Sammy was here. Even if he lost his baby, he'd wait it out for his brother. He couldn't abandon him. 

He'd be fucking heartbroken though, that's for sure. 

"Hey, everything okay? The hell was that?" Sam says.

"Had to make sure she was still here," he says. 

"Your car'll be fine, Dean, I promise."

"Yeah? How the hell d'you know that?" 

"I just do, okay? As long as we stay in this room, it'll stick around." 

"All right," Dean says. Sam's usually right, after all, and he trusts him. If he says she'll make it, she will. 

There's a little window, about eye-height, tucked up on the wall facing where the house should be, and through it, Dean can see only darkness. He should be panicking, probably, at least searching for a solution, but every time he tries to work up the will to be afraid it slips away from him like a fish. He's pretty sure they're gonna die, get absorbed into the dark and become nothing, and he doesn't want to fight it. He sits on the trunk of the Impala and Sam hops up next to him like they're about to share a beer at the side of the road. Something's wrong with that, but he can't - he  _can't._ Everything is wrong, and when he tries to think about it he feels like his skull's about to cave in.

"Mr. Mendoza gave me a free pastry yesterday, at The Star," Sam's saying. "He said you should - "

"Sam, don't," Dean says.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Don't just -  _talk_ like that, okay? Mr. Mendoza's dead, isn't he? He's gone. And so's Sandy, and Jason, and Yasmin. You can't just... sit there and talk."  

"What else can I do?" Sam asks, and he's got a point. The town is gone, their jobs are gone, the house is gone.  

"There's nothing," Dean says. 

"But you're happy, right?" Sam says. There's something wrong with his eyes, like he isn't able to track Dean's movement quite right. They trail just a heartbeat behind where Dean goes, slow and uncoordinated.

"I - "

"You're happy?"

" _No_ ," Dean says, and a dam breaks inside him, his own words pouring forth - and he hadn't noticed they  _weren't_ his words up until this moment, hadn't known he felt the way he did until just now, had wondered about it and worried but never  _known. "_  No, I'm not. This is - something's seriously fucked up, man."

The world twists and shudders around him, squeezing bands of ice around his ribs. He shudders and struggles and tries to throw them off, keep his head clear. Sam's still sitting next to him without a care in the world, legs spread wide and shoulders relaxed.  

"You've got me," he says, eyes big and compassionate. "You're happy."

"That's  _not enough!"_ he yells through the pounding, crushing pain. "I want to go outside. I want to drive, I want to hunt, I want to  _get out of this fucking town - "_

"That isn't true. You're happy."

"I'm not happy, Sam! I'm not! Do I look happy to you?"

Sam opens his mouth to answer and two voices come pouring out of it, both of them recognizably his but speaking at the same time. "You look happy," one Sam Voice says. "Dean, wake up," says the other.

" _What_? What the fuck, Sam, what's happening - ?" 

"Wake  _up,"_ Sam yells, without moving his mouth. It sounds as if he's speaking from across a great chasm, his voice faint and weak and reverberating a little.

"Ignore him," says the Sam sitting in front of him. "He wants to ruin you. He wants to make you live in a dead world."

" _This_ is a dead world," Dean says.

"C'mon, Dean, work with me," faint Sam says. 

"I can fix it," says the Sam in front of him. "If you let me. There is nothing for you out there." 

"This isn't real, is it," Dean says.

"Does it matter? You were happy. You had friends, and you had your brother, and you were comfortable."  

"I didn't know. I  _couldn't_ know, because you've been fucking with my mind, haven't you? I can't  _think_ when I'm in here. I can't think now. I don't want that." 

"Dean! Wake up! Push through, man, come on!" faint Sam urges.

"I don't know what the fuck you are, or what the fuck you want," Dean says. "But I'm thinkin' you're a monster. And we don't parlay with those."

He pushes through the pain, ignores his swirling, aching, head, and prepares to lunge at the thing that's been wearing his brother. Its face shifts, and it blinks at him with big, blue eyes.

And then he wakes up.  


	3. Chapter 3

He is cold. This is the first thing he notices.

The second is that he is lying down on his back like a cadaver, hands to his sides and feet bare. Everything hurts, his head especially, and he's having trouble making out exactly where he is, because his vision's gone soft and swimmy, everything too bright.

It doesn't matter. There was a monster, he remembers, adrenaline rushing in. It'd kept him trapped in his own head, God knows how long, and now it's hanging around somewhere, and - Sam. Where was Sam? He tries to remember where he'd last seen him, discards memories of skin and hands and touch and reaches back to before, when he hadn't yet been shoehorned into The Truman Show, but he comes up with nothing. His memory's still riddled with gaps and it's just hard to think, hard to focus on any one thing for more than a moment. 

But he's angry. He's got this immense wrath vibrating through to his bones and that he understands, that he can focus on, and it builds as he forces himself to stand. He's going to kill the motherfucker that thought it could play with him, bat him around in its fantasy world like he was some kind of doll. It's dead. 

The room he's in is small and octagonal, windowless, bare of all decoration save the table he'd been lying on, which is plain stainless steel. His vision's clearing up enough that he's able to make out the single rusty metal door just across from him, and he beelines toward it.

His legs support him fairly well, despite the soreness. He doesn't seem to have lost any muscle mass, thankfully, so he's just gotta loosen up and he'll be good to go. Maybe he'll get Sam to massage him later.

Except. 

Except, he can't even fucking remember if Sam was ever actually, uh, with him. Sexually. Had they started up before he'd been dumped into la-la land? Had it just been wishful thinking on his part? 

He can't worry about it right now. He's got to get out of this goddamn room, tear the monster apart, find Sam, and then - and then what? Say hey, little brother, we ever get to fucking? That would go over great. It'd probably be best to wait until the memories return on their own.

He tries the doorhandle, and it takes a little force to get it to budge but he gets it open all the same, rust flaking off onto his hand. Outside there's a long, dark hallway, lined with doors, and at the very end of it, a blurry humanoid figure.

It's here. Anger floods through him, propelling him forward, even though he hasn't got a weapon, hasn't got anything but his own teeth and nails. He doesn't care. Whatever the fuck it is - djinn, fae, or otherwise - he's gonna tear it apart.

And then it turns, and it's close enough now that even with his shitty vision he can make piece together its features into a recognizable face, its dark hair and ratty coat suddenly startlingly familiar to him. His rage is iced out in an instant and he slows to a jog.

"Cas!" he hollers.

"Dean," Castiel says.

"Thought you were a monster, dude," Dean says, trotting over. "Almost tore your throat out."

"Unlikely," Castiel says. "Given that you are weaponless - " 

Dean knocks him in the arm. "Aw, Cas. Let a guy have his fun, huh? Man, it's good to see you, though."

"Is it?"

"Um, yeah? I wake up alone, find out I've been playing house in my head for days - hell yeah, I'm glad to see you."

"Months," Castiel corrects.

"What?"

"You've been here for months. Specifically, three months, two days, and sixteen hours."

"Jesus. But - in my head I went through, like, a week and a half, tops."

"Time runs differently in - ah," Castiel says. He leans against the wall, a hand pressed into his stomach. For the first time, Dean notices he's pallid and worn, his eyes glazed and mouth tight with pain. There's a thin trickle of black running from his mouth.

"Cas!" he says. "You okay? Why are you -? You're leaking!"

"Yes, that is an apt way to put it," Cas says. "Leaking. Thank you, Dean." He coughs into his hand and it comes away black. He grimaces at it and wipes it down his trenchcoat.  
In Dean's head, a moment slots into place. He remembers this, black, glistening stripes against tan canvas, slithering down his friend's face - but no, not his friend, not anymore, since he'd gone behind all their backs and worked with Crowely to fuck with the order of things. In his mind's eye he sees himself, pinned against a wall and helpless to move, and in front of him, Cas funneling a storm of screeching souls into his body. Bow to me, Castiel had said, and after that - nothing. Nothing, and nothing, and then he'd woken up next to Sam in a soft, warm bed, sunlight filtering through the windows like molten honey, cheerful, friendly neighborhood just outside.

"Cas," Dean rasps, his stomach hurtling toward the ground. "You - what did you do? You opened Purgatory, and then - . Cas, don't tell me - please, don't say this was you. Don't say you locked me up in my own head."

"I'm sorry, Dean. It was necessary."

"Cas," he says, crumpling. "Oh, Cas. How could you?"

"It was a kindness. I wanted nothing but your safety."

A horrible thought strikes him, and his gorge begins to rise. "Were you there with me? Cas, were you - were you Sam? The whole time, were you - ?"

"No, Dean. I did not have the time to accompany you, though I would have liked to. The people you interacted with, including your brother, were constructed from your memories and reacted only as you wished them to, though I did borrow Sam's form to speak to you near the end."

"Jesus Christ. Cas, how - ? How could you have done this?"

"I did only what I must," Castiel says, advancing. "And I will do the same now, even if it conflicts with my own desires. I always liked you, Dean, and I won't enjoy killing you."

"Woah, what - killing - ? Cas, hey," Dean says. "All those souls've gone to your head. You can't - this isn't you - "

"I have to," Castiel says, raising his arm. "I must punish your brother and dissuade him from his chosen path."

"His - what? Cas - ugh," he grunts, hitting the wall with a thud. Cas has done no more than flick his wrist, but Dean's pinned and unable to move an inch, same as he'd been when Purgatory'd been breached.

"You must understand," Castiel continues. "This is your brother's fault, not mine. If it weren't for him, you'd still be in the world I'd created for you, happy and comfortable."

"I don't want that," Dean says. "I've never wanted that. I'd rather die right here than have you fuck with my mind again."

Cas looks sorrowful. "I am hurt you think so poorly of my work."

"Can't say I'm sympathetic."

"Very well," Castiel says. "If this is what you choose. I will make it quick."

Dean meets his gaze dead on. "Do it," he says.

He finds that he isn't afraid. Sam is alive, somewhere - Cas let slip that much - and he is free, finally able to breathe after spending all that time trapped in that confining nightmare of a fantasy where he'd been unable to control his own thoughts. Here, in the real world, Cas was God and more than a little crazy, and he'd never so much as kissed his whiny, overgrown brother and probaby would never get the chance to - and he could think, on his own, without censure. 

He would die as himself. That was enough.

Maybe he is ready.

"Dean, I - " Cas begins to say, eyes cold and inexpressive, only to be interrupted by a great blast of air, two sets of feet slamming down into the concrete floor.

"Ow," someone says to his right. He turns to look.

There is Sam, looking gaunt and worried, and next to him, of all people, fucking Crowley, smarmy as ever in a well-tailored black suit.

"What the fuck," is all Dean can say.

"Squirrel. I see you're alive, and as eloquent as always," Crowley says.

Castiel looks about as gobsmacked as Dean does. "I set up wards all over this place," he says. "This is impossible."

"Is it? We'll just leave, then, sorry," Crowley says.

"Cas," Sam says, and his voice sounds older, more tired than Dean'd remembered. "This is the end. Stand down."

"Sam," Dean chokes. "Don't. Get outta here. He's - you can't.

"You think this is over? You cannot touch me. I am God. I am - "

A clean, pure note cuts through Castiel's words, and he yells in agony, falling to his knees. Dean drops, too, the hold severed, and as soon as he's back on his feet he leaps back to join Sam and sees, unfathomably, that Sam's got a pan flute settled on his lower lip, and he's blowing into it steadily. The image is so ridiculous that he's stunned into staring.  
But it's working. Castiel is writing on the floor, his skin bubbling and stretching, black flooding from his nose and mouth and eyes. It streams down his face and rolls toward Sam, oily and slick, and circles around his feet, growing thicker and wider by the minute.  
From his side, Crowley unsheathes a long, thin blade, and offers it to Dean hilt-first.

"Would you like to do the honors?" he asks. "I recommend you go for the neck. We tried his middle earlier and, well. You can guess how that went."

But Sam shakes his head, points at the muck swirling around him. He isn't able to speak around the flute, but the message is clear: this is enough.

"You Winchesters. Can't hurt the man who ruined the world, can we now. Of course not," Crowley says, sliding the sword back at his side. "Ridiculous."

Sam plays, and plays, puddle growing around his feet, until finally there's nothing coming from Cas at all, and his body's gone cold and still. He lowers the flute from his mouth, letting the last note fade out, and the goo shivers all over, spreads unnaturally across the floor, and snakes down the hallway.

"Great," says Crowley. "I'm sure that won't be a problem later."

Dean can't care less about fucking sentient slime because hardly three feet away from him is his beautiful, infuriating, real live flesh-and-blood brother, who is standing with his arms awkwardly held to his sides.

"Hey," Sam says. He looks worried and terrified and hopeful all at once.

"Sam," Dean says, and pulls him into a bear hug. Sam's arms go up around him immediately, crushing them together, and he feels like he's whole again.

"I was so - Jesus, Dean," Sam's saying. "I thought - fuck, I thought so many things, and I just - . I'm so glad you're okay. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, man," Dean says, laughing. "Cas stuck me in, like, some kinda ultimate fantasy dream world. It really wasn't that bad. What'd you think was going on?"

"I - we weren't sure," Sam says, looking shifty. "Ultimate fantasy dream world, huh? What was that like?"

"Well, you weren't there, for starters - "

"Oh."

"Hey! Woah, I'm just kidding," Dean says, backtracking. "You were. We got to hang out a bunch. Otherwise, it was basically what you'd expect, you know? Hot chicks, lots of alcohol, sweet cars. The Impala was there." 

"Of course it was," Sam says, grinning. His arms are warm and strong across his back and his chest is broad and familiar, and Dean really just wants to lean in and kiss his dimples.

But they hadn't ever done anything in the real world. He couldn't just - he couldn't touch his brother like that anymore.

He drops his arms. "Dude," he says meaningfully, pulling backwards.

"Oh! Sorry. I was just - sorry. It's just good to see you again."

"Yeah, you too. What the hell you been doing all this time? Why's he with you?"

"Well - "

"Can we do this later, maybe?" Crowley says, glancing between the two of them. "We've got a battalion of pissy angels on our arses and a blessed yacht's worth of leviathan to round up."

"Yeah, I - . Right. Dean, could you check - "

Dean's already got his hand pressed against Cas' throat. There's a pulse - weak and thready, but still there.

"He's alive," he reports.

"All right. You think you can carry him, or - ?"

"Uh. Nah, I got him," Dean says, crouching down to heave Cas into an undignified fireman's carry. He's pretty fucking heavy for such a wiry guy, and

"Great," Crowley says. "That's great. Let's take the deranged, murderous, dethroned god with us. Excellent plan."  

"We can't just leave him here for Nathanael and the rest," Sam says. "Besides, it was the souls, not him. Cas didn't mean any of it."

"You tell yourself that," Crowley grumbles, but follows them anyway, down the dark corridor and into a larger main room. There's a heavy pair of double doors at the far wall, and through the sliver of space between them, Dean can see daylight.

"You ready?" Sam says.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Dean answers, and grins.

They pull open the doors and step out into the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~so. i've got two options from here:~~
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> ~~a) end this story here, and begin working on the next entry, which will be from sam's pov. while dean was in brain jail sam was off having very!! exciting!! adventures!!!  
>  ~~OR  
>  ~~b) add on another probably stupidly long chapter to cinch up up this storyline asap~~~~~~
> 
>  
> 
> ~~  
> ~~what do you guys think?? option b has less impact, but option a rectifies this frankly unsatisfactory + kinda shitty chapter. please let me know! ~~~~~~~~  
> 
> 
> OKAY THE VERDICT IS IN: we're going to go with cr0wgrrl's option c, which is basically option b (so, adding on an actual ending to this story!!) with a samadventure timestamp tacked on at the end. thank you EVERYONE for sending me great input, bearing with my slowness, and generally being a great audience! i love talking with you guys and you've been a great help with this story! c:


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay this chapter is uh. well. maybe not what you were expecting. sorrySORRY 
> 
> ps also i'm sorry for continually tacking extra chapters on????? like it just keeps on turning out to be way longer than i expected, so, uh.

The building they come out of looks like it was once a factory, tall and solid, still in relatively good condition but choked with weeds about the base, bold trees grown right up next to and sometimes through places in the brick. Parked on a dirt path a few yards away, looking somewhat worse for wear but still just as beautiful as she's ever been, is the Impala. His first instinct is to run for her, but as soon as he takes more than a few steps away from the door, he's surrounded by a huddle of ragtag, unkempt people, all of them spattered with blood and black, inky fluid from head to toe.

Dean's hand goes right to the small of his back, where, of course, he doesn't have a gun. He tries to herd Sam behind him anyway, use himself as a meatshield and maybe give him precious time to escape. He'd like to set down Castiel, keep him out of the crossfire, but he can't envision a sensible way to do it, so he tries to sort of shield him with his arms. _Sorry, Cas._

Sam's hand lands warm and comforting on his tense, coiled-up shoulder. "Dean, it's okay. They're with us." 

"Excuse me?" Dean says. He doesn't shift his posture in the slightest. Some of them are missing arms, legs, large portions of their torsos, and there's no human that could survive trauma like that. One man's got the side of his skull caved in with enough force that he's lost an eyeball, but he's still standing and shifting contritely. Dean could swear a nervous blush is rising up his neck. 

"Though they aren't supposed to be here," Crowley says dryly. 

"Uh," says a small woman near the front of the pack. "We just - we figured we'd be more help here, so - "

"Stow it," Crowley says. "The kitchen got too hot, and you ran for it. Don't know what I was expecting, honestly. Damn demons."

" _Demons_?" Dean says. 

"They did what they could," Sam says to them. "Thanks, guys."

"Oh, no problem, friend," the small woman says. She could be someone's grandmother, wrinkled nut-brown face and sensible housedress, except she's short a hand and most of her forearm. 

"You're working with demons," Dean says. "You partnered up with Crowley, and you got demon henchmen." 

"I know what it looks like, but they've been a huge help - trust me, please," Sam says. "I can explain later." 

"There isn't any _explaining_ ," Dean says. "You know firsthand what happens when you deal with demons. The fuck were you thinking?"

"Sam," Crowley says. "Nathanael's close."

"Shit. Let's talk on the way, okay? We need to move."

They start to move through the cluster, Dean shouldering his way through without remorse. Those meatsuits, Jesus. He can't imagine his cautious little brother could ever commend using up a human being like that, but the proof's right there, watching them jog off to the Impala. He'd _thanked_ them. Sam had fucking thanked them for God-knows-what horrible shit.

"Um, your majesty - " one of the demons says.

"Later," Crowley calls over his shoulder. "Reconvene at the usual place. I'm taking the long route 'round." 

"The usual place?" Dean says, falling into step next to his brother. He adjusts Cas so that his pointy fucking hipbones aren't digging holes into his back anymore. 

"We got a safehold," Sam explains. "We're gonna head there now."

"Not much of a safehold if demons can get in," Dean grumbles. 

"They're our allies, Dean. I know you don't get it, but - " 

"No. I don't. And I won't. After everything we've been through - . I don't know what's been going on, but I know sooner or later they're gonna stab you in the back."

"I'm right here, you know," Crowley says. 

"They've been helpful so far," Sam says, and Dean totally ignores him, because he's finally close enough to run a hand over his baby's flank, confirm the firmness of her, her stark reality. 

"Heya, girl," he says, smiling. "Long time no see. Sam hasn't been taking care of you, huh?" 

"We didn't really have the time between all the shit that was going on, man," Sam says, tromping around to the driver's side. "You wanna get Cas into the back?" 

It's no small feat to corral a limp, unwiedly body into the Impala's back seat, a lesson he's had to learn more than once now, and Cas gets bumped a couple times before he's settled on his back, head on one seat and feet on the other.

"Where'm I supposed to sit, then?" Crowley says. "On his head?"

"You can sit in the trunk, for all I care," Dean says.

" _Dean_ ," says Sam. "Make room." 

He doesn't want Crowley shoved in next to an unconscious, defenseless Cas, but he also really doesn't want him in the front seat, so he tugs Cas around until he's propped up against the door, cheek smooshed into the window, and waves Crowley in. Crowley shoots him a sharkish, unpleasant grin.

"Thanks, darling," he says. Dean slams the door shut in his face.

Sam's already behind the wheel. Dean'd like to drive, even though he doesn't know the way, but, as Crowley reminds them constantly, they haven't got time to argue, so he bites his tongue and settles into the passenger seat while Sam guides her down the dirt path with a careful hand. 

He'd had the Impala inside Cas' dream world - or, at least, a facsimile of one - but it still feels as if he hadn't really seen her in months, and sitting in her next to his brother loosens something in his chest he hadn't realized was there, some small, nervous worry that'd been stuck in his rib cage. He leans back into the seat and lets the leather creak around him, cup his shoulders in the faithful way it always has.

He'd really like to catch up with his brother - see how he's doing, what's been going on with him - but Crowley's sitting gamely in the back with his ears perked and ready, the squeaky third wheel no one ever wanted. 

"Demons," he says instead, before they've reached the end of the path. "Explain." 

"Uh," Sam says. "They've been - well. Mostly they're here due to Crowley."

"And don't forget it," Crowley chimes in. "Wasn't easy. It's like herding cats. Plotting, despicable bastards, the lot of them."

"Can't argue with that," Dean says. 

"They're not all - well, okay, they are. But they've been helpful, like I said. We couldn'tve done it otherwise." 

"You must understand - they're not here for _your_ sake," Crowley says. "Or Sam's, or humanity's. Cas has been snuffing them out left and right, so they've chosen to sign on and save their own hides."

"And what - you decided you had to campaign for them?" Dean says to his brother. "Save the goddamn demons? You shoulda just let Cas do his thing. World would be a better place."

"It wasn't just demons he was smiting," Sam says. "Dean, he was - . He started off with sinners, the real heavy hitters - murderers and rapists and scumbags, and when he ran out of those - . "

"He went after minor offenders," Dean says.

"Yeah, them too. But worse, he started going after heretics." 

"Heretics?"

"People who disagreed with him, mostly. A lotta talk show hosts and politicians, but also just common folk who didn't want to bow down to a new god."

"Fuck, Cas," Dean says, watching his friend's slack, untroubled face in the rearview mirror. 

"You want I should kill him now?" Crowley says. "He is a mass murderer, you know."

"I'm aware, thank you," Dean says. "Cas is staying. End of story."

"I'm not sure you're getting the big picture here, darling," Crowley says. "We aren't talking a handful of Bible-thumping nutjobs, we're - " 

"Shut up, Crowley," Dean growls. "I'm not stupid. I get it. Cas fucked up, all right? But he's - . He was our friend. We can't just toss him out, especially now that he's got all those souls outta him, okay?"

"You're an idiot," Crowley says. Dean ignores him.

"He killed angels, too," Sam adds.

"Good," Dean says. "Dickless featherdusters had it coming. They're looking for Cas, though, aren't they."

"Right," Sam says, and makes as if to aim the Impala down yet another well-vegetated, curvy back road. Crowley raps his knuckles on his headrest. 

"Sam, why don't we take the freeway, hm? We can pass through Hartford - I heard it's lovely this time of year." 

"I don't know if that's - "

"He needs to see," Crowley spits, his voice devoid of its usual playfulness. "He isn't _getting_ it."

"You're awfully invested in this," Dean points out.

"And why _shouldn't_ I be? I _like_ it up here. There's fine vodka and excellent tailors, and those olives with the red bits in 'em, _and_ I've got a fairly lucrative brokerage business set up. Cas came _this_ close to ruining all of it."

"I dunno. So far everything looks okay to me," Dean says, waving his hand toward his window at the dense foliage, the occasional well-maintained house tucked away behind the trees. 

"You weren't _here_. You were off taking a vacation - but clearly, the world revolves around _you,_ so everyone else _must_ be fine."

"Crowley," Sam sighs. "He hasn't - he wouldn'tve sat out if he'd had the choice, and you know it. We'll go through Hartford, all right? And from there - . We'll see where it goes."

"Right up your arse, is where," Crowley mumbles, but slumps back against the seat nonetheless, the wind gone from his sails. 

His compliance makes the hair stand up at the back of Dean's neck. Crowley's never been particularly amicable toward either him or Sam, and the easy way he'd stuck himself in between the two of them makes him more than a little nervous. He's got to be playing for something - Dean just has to figure out what. 

He watches his brother drive out of the corner of his eye, hoping he'll catch a glimpse of what'd gone on during the time they'd lost in his face. He's frustratingly lovely and utterly untouchable, golden afternoon light flickering off his too-long hair, highlighting his pronounced cheekbones, the fine bones of the hand he's got on the steering wheel.

He looks tired and gaunt, skin pulled taught and anxious, but at the same time so young and directionless it makes Dean's breath catch. 

"I'm sorry," he hears himself say, and Sam glances over at him, brows drawn. 

"What? Why?"

"For just - leaving, I guess. I shoulda been there when all this shit was going on, and I wasn't."

"Dean - don't listen to Crowley, man. Cas was God, for fuck's sake. You couldn'tve broken out if you'd tried."

"I _didn't_ try, Sam," Dean snaps, hot embarrassment gnawing in his stomach. "That's the thing - I didn't even _think_ to try. I didn't question it."

"That was the point, though, wasn't it? To keep you trapped? I'm sure he did everything he could to keep you off his trail."

"Doesn't mean I couldn'tve fought it," Dean says. 

"There's nothing you could've done. Trust me on this one, okay? We came out all right anyway."

"I just wish I could've helped."

"You did, Dean - don't look at me like that, you seriously did. Sometimes things were just - they were so awful, and hopeless, and sometimes I wanted to give up. But then I'd think, I can't stop. Not until I get you back."

"Awww," Crowley says. 

Sam goes a deep pink, his eyes fixed firmly on the road. Dean wants to punch him in the arm but, also, kiss the daylights out of him, and isn't that fucking gay as hell. All that time stuck in Casland must've turned his brain to soup. Christ, they'd _cuddled_. Dean had been the little spoon. 

But. Also. Maybe he doesn't mind so much, if it's his brother. Anyone else - hell no. But Sam'd tear the world apart for him. He'd enlist a regiment of demons and tackle God head-on. And that's worth something. 

But he's still not about to kiss his very straight, very uninterested brother while the guy's driving a car with a hellish peanut gallery in the back. That's just - no. He settles on giving Sam's right arm - the one not currently preoccupied with driving the car - a manly pat. Sam looks over at him, finally, and gives him a small smile.

The road flies by. They're on the freeway soon enough, which isn't much different than the back roads, except there's a guard rail and a couple more lanes. They're still fenced in by trees all around, gentle rolling hills as far as they can see. It's peaceful, but it's still making Dean a little antsy, a little too closed-in for comfort. He's a Midwestern boy at heart, born for waist-high grass and flat, flowered plains, not all these stifling trees.

They pass a lone car once or twice, all of them going in the opposite direction. Each one they see is packed to the brim with boxes, duffle bags, small pieces of furniture, the passengers wedged in between like pieces of a complex, air-tight tetris puzzle. One of them's got a dining table strapped to the roof with bungee cord.

"Dunno where they're all going," Crowley remarks, as a young family speeds by in a junky dark purple van. "Last time I checked, the East Coast wasn't that bad."

"They don't know that for sure," Sam says. "Grass is always greener. Ugh, where are we? Middlesex at least, right?" 

"Ha ha," Dean says. " _Middlesex_."

"Crowley said the exact same thing, you know. First time we drove through here." 

Dean shuts up. 

There's a bridge, and a pointless stoplight they blast right through, and then an increasingly confusing tangle of highway, looping around and doubling back on itself in ways a highway really shouldn't. In the distance Dean can see the beginning of a cityscape, squat old buildings and taller, more modern offices, a smog of flat roofs and windows. The closer they get, the more businesses begin to crowd around the highway, restaurants and furniture stores, and most importantly: 

"Hey, Sam, look - _The Minx Cabaret_ ," Dean says. "Think we got time to drop by, say hi to the ladies? Ooh, and check it out, a sex shop. We can stop there first, maybe get 'em some presents. Maybe they'll give a demonstration, huh?"

"You're gross," Sam says.

"While there's nothing more I'd like than to spend my precious time at a strip club with you, Dean," Crowley says, "there's undoubtedly no one there." 

"What, strippers're on Cas' hit list? The hell? They provide a service! Nothing wrong with that!"

"Not all of them are dead, I'm sure. They've just got more pressing matters at hand." 

"Nothing is a _more pressing matter_ than stripping. It's a valuable asset - "

"Tunnel coming up," Sam says, probably just to shut him up. 

They hurtle through the dark. Dean's never liked these things. Why the hell put a perfectly good section of road underground when you could keep it out in the open air? It doesn't make any sense. 

It's a short one, though, and they soon pull out into daylight. There's a parking garage, and an odd, industrial sculpture, and a blockade of concrete and mesh and wire piled across the main road at least twelve feet tall. There are two handpainted signs tacked to it - CLOSED TO ALL COMERS, and TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT. 

"Whoa," Sam says, bringing the Impala to a screeching halt. There's an explosion of filthy cursing from behind them, and Dean has to turn to see.

"He _fell_ on me," Crowley spits, shoving Cas back over to the other side of the car. "The hell's so important you've got to turn like that?" 

"We got a roadblock," Sam says." 

Crowley cranes his neck to look. "Ah. Why didn't you say so? I'll take care of it." 

"Crowley - _wait_ \- " Sam says, but he's already out the door and into the street. "Leave it! We can go around the city - they've put it up for a reason - "

"That we have," a woman says from atop the pile of rubble. She's broad-shouldered and solid, her long hair coiled into box braids and twisted atop her head in a large knot, and she's got a rifle trained dead-center at Crowley's chest. 

"Ah," Crowley says, unruffled. "Didn't see you there, luv. Don't suppose you could step down - ?" 

Sam comes tumbling out of the Impala, his hands raised at shoulder level, his posture loose and harmless. 

"What're you - get back in here, idiot," Dean hisses, and follows him, because Sam's not allowed to do stupid shit on his own, goddammit.

"My friends and I were just moving on," Sam calls to her. "We're gonna drive around. We don't mean any trouble." 

"That'd be best," she says. "Although..."

"Although?" Crowley prompts. 

"I can't let you through," she says, and Crowley rolls his eyes. " _But_ ," she adds, "I can't set you off in good concience without warning you. Buncha duppies came through not two hours ago. More'n I've ever seen at once, rolling down the highway all together like a - a river. They passed us by, praise God, but a few stayed behind, and they're all over the highway now." 

"Thank you, ma'am," Sam says. "We'll keep that in mind."

"You boys be careful," she says. "God be with you."

"Oh, he is," Dean says. "Almost like he's riding in our backseat, sometimes." 

Sam kicks him.

"I've felt the same," she says. "He's looking out for us. He rewards His faithful."

"That he certainly does," Crowley says. 

They all wave, and get back into the car. As Sam starts her up, the woman disappears into the rubble once again.

"Okay," Dean says. "What the hell? Who - why the Great Wall? What's with all the God shit? And _the fuck's a duppy_?" 

"Why don't you ask your friend," Crowley says, nudging Cas off his shoulder. "He might be a little biased, but he'll be able to give an insider's perceptive."

"Don't get me wrong, I got plenty of questions for Cas," Dean says. "When he wakes up, him and me are gonna have a nice date with a bare lightbulb and a flimsy desk. Right now, though, you two have to fill me in. Preferably Sam."

"Aw, Dean. Where's the spark gone between the two of us?" 

Dean gives him the finger.

Sam's completed the series of complicated maneuvers necessary to get them back on the highway, and from there, Dean's finally given a wide-angle shot of the city. It wasn't visible from the road in, but now he can see tangible destruction; abandoned cars, fallen billboards, apartment buildings reduced to rock. It reminds him a little of the 2014 Zachariah'd sent him to, minus the flesh-hungry hordes. 

"They got off easy," Crowley says. "You should see St. Louis. Not a building - _Jesus CHRIST_ , Winchester! D'you _have_ to operate the car like you're a damn stunt driver?" 

Sam's brought the Impala to a screeching halt for a second time in less than twenty minutes, stopping her diagonally across the road. There's a bit of a scuffle in the back seat, and then a dull thud as Crowley sends Cas into the footwell with a vengeful shove.

Dean would complain, but he's distracted by the stark horror on his brother's face. "Sam?" he asks, leaning over to comfort him, and stops dead, his hand halfway to his brother's arm.

Something's rising from the pavement, something black and gooey and sinuous, gaping, leaking tunnel of a face, fat-toed limbs sometimes bending backward like a dog's, sometimes collapsing back to the ground in a slick rush. It slings itself forward without purpose, bubbling and melting under its own heat. It looks eerily familiar, though he's positive he's never encountered anything like it before - he'dve remembered it, for certain - but watching it heave its bulbous body wetly across the road awakens something in the back of his mind, vague and as of yet unformed. 

"Ah!" Crowley says. He sounds entirely too cheerful, considering. "To answer your earlier question, Dean, that'd be a duppy. Although, that's more a colloquial term - we prefer leviathan." 

"Isn't that the stuff - "

"That came out of Cas? Bingo! Maybe you Winchesters aren't as thick as you look."

That wasn't it, though, Dean doesn't think. That's not why he remembers it. No, he was - there was a knife, he thinks, something about a shoe - 

"He only meant to take certain souls," Sam says, "but once the rift was opened, I don't think he could differentiate. He ferried those things over, too." 

"And you let them _out_?" Dean says, distracted from his thread of thought.

"Best choice at the time," Sam says, edging the car backwards slowly. "Not a great one, obviously. But the best we had."

"At least Cas isn't going around euthanizing nonbelievers any longer," Crowley adds. "Now they're just getting eaten by Lovecraftian nightmares. A definite step up."

"Oh, shit," Sam says. "It's seen us." 

The thing looks exactly the same to Dean, shifting limbs and slimy writhing body, but he's learned to trust his brother's knowledge at this point, so he accepts it as fact. Even far away it inspires a frantic animal fear in his gut, nails scratching against his stomach, telling him to get the fuck away. It's a feeling he hasn't had since he was six and cornered in a closet by the first ghoul he'd ever hunted with his father - and ever since then it's been burnt away by the fear of failure, the knowledge that Dad's watching from the doorway with disappointment all over his face. He'd thought he'd lost it. 

"Can we outrun it?" he asks. "Baby can go pretty fast - " 

" _Well_ ," Crowley says. "I suppose this is farewell. I'll regale the others of your heroic, utterly pointless deaths - no need to thank me. As a bonus, I'll even leave the sword. Ta, boys."

The space where he'd been sitting is, suddenly, empty, sans the place on the seat where the sword's been placed primly. Cas is still crushed into the footwell, drooling onto his own arm. 

"There's your answer," Sam says.

"Fuck," Dean says. "Aw, shit, it's gonna get that goo all over my car - " 

"Dean. Not really the issue here. All we've got is the sword, and I - . I don't know if it'll work."

The thing - the leviathan - is oozing slowly closer to them, limb over toxic limb. It's playing with them, Dean realizes, and a hot brand of anger rips through him. It knows they've got nowhere to go, and no way to fight, so it's taking its time - taunting them. Prolonging their fear. 

How fucking dare it.

"One way to find out, right?" Dean says. In one fluid motion he snags the sword from the back seat, pops open the door, and strides right into the middle of the road.  
"Hey! Gumby!" he hollers, cupping a hand around his mouth. "Yeah, you! You gonna come'n take us on, or is your pussy ass - " 

One moment it's fifteen or so Impala lengths away, and the next it's looming over him huge and dripping, smelling of rot and warm roadkill, legs now more like clawed pincers than anything else. It's so fast he hardly sees it move, would've maybe thought it'd teleported except for the liquid trail it's left behind, a thin wet gleam from there to here. 

"Oh," Dean says. "Uh." 

One leg jabs forward, embeds itself in the pavement where Dean's foot had been about a second ago. 

"Fuck," he says, "fuck," and rolls under another wicked swing just barely, feels it graze his hair before it slams into the ground with a crunch and a spray of rock. He gets to his feet - okay, think, _plan_ \- dodges in a direction that takes him further away from Sam, good, that's good - jumps back one more time but not fast enough, ribbons of blood streaming from his stomach where it's managed to catch him with just the tip of a claw. He hears Sam yell somewhere behind him, and fuck - stay in the fucking _car_ , you idiot, drive _away_. The cut isn't deep but it's not good, either, hurts when he ducks the thing's next blow, throws himself down on the rough pavement to avoid a swing at his neck. He's bleeding through his shirt. _Hold on to the sword._ Do not let go of the sword. 

His injury's got it worked up, and now it's got its mouth open huge, wide enough to swallow him whole, rows and rows of teeth like a shark's and twitching, wriggling black tendrils swelling down from the roof. 

"That's disgusting, dude," he informs it, and it lurches forward, dragging its lumpy abdomen across the pavement. It sends an arm hurtling at him and he meets it halfway blade-first, expecting it to bounce off or maybe stop it in place, but the sword shivers in his hand like a living thing and slices straight through. 

The leviathan rears back and screams, the sound piercing and awful, a hundred garbage disposals running at once, a metal fork dragged across a blackboard, petrifying and unearthly and enraged. It's nearly the worst thing he's ever heard, second only to Cas' true voice, but Dean holds his ground, animal terror all but gone, leaving only a steady, sure confidence, the thrill of a good fight. This is - he can do this. It's him and a yard of pavement and this fucking thing that's dared to cross into his world, threaten his little brother, and he can do this. He's gonna fucking tear it apart. 

He advances on it, sword held close to his body, still quivering a little in his grasp. The leviathan doesn't seem to know how to compensate for its injury, lurching backwards and hemorrhaging dark fluid from the stump of its leg. It teeters.

"All right, fucker," Dean says, and lunges.

His first thrust cuts through two of its limbs at the base. The second sinks home underneath its gaping mouth. It's screaming nonstop now, flailing and stabbing out at him recklessly, faster than before. It slices through the meat of his shoulder and he yells through the pain, lops off another incoming limb, props the sword outward from his chest like it were a stake or a lance and launches himself forward. He can't really avoid the claws tearing through his legs but it's unable to keep him away and he drives his blade through the roof of its mouth with a satisfying squelch. 

It thrashes underneath him, rows of razor-sharp teeth cutting into his arms as he struggles to push the blade in deeper. It hurts, god, it hurts like he's reaching through razor wire, and then he slams it in that last few inches until his hands are crushed up against the disgusting, slimy tendrils dangling from its upper mouth. It seizes, goes stiff all over, and falls, curved, segmented legs turning to liquid and splattering around its limp body. He's covered in the foul stuff, and the smell's unreal, year-old meat and musty plant matter and old blood, and he doesn't even care because _hell fucking yeah he is the fucking man_. Dean Winchester: killing the unkillable since 1986. Put _that_ on his fucking resume. 

He tugs the sword out of its mouth and tries to wipe it clean on his shirt, except it only smudges the blood around, so he gives up and begins to slodge through the mess of the thing's corpse to get back to his brother, who's standing off a ways by his baby. He tries to shoot them a triumphant grin, only his face is weirdly numb and he's not sure if he's manipulating his muscles right. He thinks Sammy's yelling something but the rushing in his head's gotten to the point where he can't really hear much at all, and hey - now Sammy's started running towards him, which is nice. He'd really like to celebrate. 

"That was _awesome_ ," he says, and faints face-first onto the pavement. 

 

When he wakes his face is mushed against the Impala's familiar leather seats. His chest and belly are molded to the leather as well, following its swells and valleys, his back bared to the inside of the car. He thinks he must have his legs stretched out behind him, his arms tucked in neatly at his sides, but he can't feel much beyond a distant, throbbing ache where he remembers them being. None of his limbs respond when he commands them to move. 

That's probably not great but he's tired, god, so tired, his head cottony and hot, his eyelids battling to close. He can't - . He can't stay here. 

The engine rumbles beneath him, well near comforting as a lullaby, and he drifts back off into the dark.

The next time he awakens he's staring up at a boveda ceiling, rows and rows of brick laid to spiral round in nauseating, uneven patterns. He groans and turns his head - he's surprised to find he can - hoping to find reprieve in the walls, but the wallpaper's no better, a black-and-yellow checked nightmare with bouquets of crimson flowers added between, the occasional hideous naked cherub.

"Ah," someone says above him in a playful, fluted tone. "The hero awakens. Ha, Jen owes me fifty bucks. She didn't think you'd be coming around for, like, a few days at least. Serves her right." 

He tries to crane his neck to see, but the speaker dances out of view, and he's unable to keep track of where they're going. He feels like boiled spinach, strung out and limp all over. Everything hurts, particularly his arms, which are ablaze with lines of pain from his wrist to just below his shoulder. 

"Whozat," he says. He's surprised at how rough and dried-out his own voice is, dirt-road-raspy. He'd kill for something to drink.

"And he speaks!" she says. "It's a regular miracle! Jen's gonna have an aneurysm."

"Wh - ." He coughs explosively. "What happened? Where - . Sam?"

"Your brutish brother's fine. He's probably kicking around somewhere with his bestest demon pal." 

"Crowley," Dean hacks. 

"Mm-hmm. Tea partying, or plotting, or killing puppies with psychokinesis, whatever it is the popular kids do these days. Woah, there, tiger," she says, placing a hand on his bare chest as he struggles upwards in alarm. "Settle down. You open your stitches and I'll strap you down to this fucking table." 

Actually, it _is_ a table that he's lying on, he realizes. And that there just behind the woman's thin, pale arm is a refrigerator, and an oven, and - a sink? The refrigerator in particular looks a bit dated, pea green and plasticy and probably older than he is.

"A... kitchen?" he says, allowing her to push him back. She has very long, very red nails. 

"Wow, murderous _and_ intelligent? It's like you're the perfect package. Yes, idiot, we're in a kitchen. Your brother won't mind the blood. He's already covered in it, so." 

"Sam," he says.

"Yeah, yeah, Sam. Why don't you get some rest, huh? Lemme do my job?"

He doesn't dream.

 

Later he opens his sticky eyes just to see that goddamn ceiling again. "Ugh," he says, and there's a loud clatter like a tray hitting hard floor, the skitter of a dozen small instruments scattering in all directions. 

"Motherfucker," says someone - the woman who'd been with him earlier, he recognizes. She yells something else and it's swallowed up by a pair of massive shoulders hovering over him, a mop of shaggy hair. 

"Hey, Sam," Dean croaks, and his brother swoops in to surround him in a horribly awkward half-hug, his face pressing wet into his neck. Dean is aware, intensely, that he isn't wearing a shirt. 

"You're okay," Sam says. His hair is tickling Dean's collarbones. "I'm so - you're okay." 

"Gerroff," Dean grunts, and Sam springs backward, red-faced. 

"Sorry. Sorry - " 

"S'okay, just sore." _And half-naked_ , Dean adds in his head. He tugs himself up into a sitting position with more effort than he's really comfortable with, his head heavy and pulsing. "Ugh," he reiterates. "Feel like shit." 

"Of course you do, asshole, you took on a leviathan on your own," Sam says, his eyes flashing dark. "You goddamn _moron_ , did you even think - ? Actually, no, I know you didn't. You lost so much fucking blood, and I thought - . You coulda died - " 

"But, hey!" Dean says, opening his arms wide. "I didn't! Sword worked, right?" 

"Fuck you," Sam says. "Don't get flippant with me. Maybe you don't care if you die, Dean, but I - . I _just_ got you back. I couldn't - if I'd lost you again - "

"Okay," Dean says, tugging him close. "Okay, Sammy. I'm here, right? Still here. Not going anywhere." 

Sam clings to him like a limpet, his arms wrapped tight around his shoulders. It hurts, a little, and he's _still_ shirtless, which is pretty uncomfortable, but he has to help his Sammy. He can't just turn him away. 

The woman is of a different opinion. "Sam? You tear out that kid's IV, and I don't care what protection you're under - ."

"Uh! Sorry," Sam sniffs, and edges back, wiping his face on his shirt like an overgrown kid. 

She comes up to fuss with his bandages and IV line, and he's able to see her clearly for the first time. She looks like someone you might find working at a record shop, or a used book store: short black bob cut, sharp features, slender neck. 

"Hey - what's your name?" he asks her as she peeks underneath the wrappings on his arm, because he can't just keep thinking of her as 'the woman'.

"You can call me Flora," she says. 

"Oh. That's a pretty name." 

"Or," she says, "you could call me Foras of the twenty-nine legions, bestower of logic unto mankind, high master of herbery and gemstones. If you're feeling fancy."

"I - . Flora's good." 

"Isn't it? Lie down. I'll be right back - and don't get up while I'm gone. I'll know."

She swings out of sight. 

" _Sam_ ," Dean says, as soon as she's gone. "Is she - ? She's a demon, isn't she." 

"Um. Yeah?" 

Dean scrambles to sit back up. "Why's a demon playing nursemaid, huh? The fuck's going on?"

Sam hurries forward to press him down again, and he tries to fight it, even though his head feels like a hot air balloon and his limbs are still all noodly. He has to get out - he's been slipping in and out of conscious with a demon _right there_ , all this time - 

"Dean! Stay still!" Sam orders, shoving him down with a hand at each shoulder. "She's with Crowley, okay? He asked her to help you."

"Crowley sent her. Right, okay then, that makes it fine. I'll just lie back and, y'know, let a demon stick god-knows-what in my veins - " 

"Dean, she's with us - please, you have to trust me, okay? She fought with us. She wants the leviathan gone as much as we do." 

"Fuck, leviathan," Dean says, pushing back against his brother. 

"Later, Dean, okay? Later. Right now - you have to rest. Please. Just a little while longer." 

'Just a little while' turns into 'overnight', and finally, the next afternoon, Flora squints at him and declares he's ready to go. He's all for that, since it means he can get away from her. 

"I'm taking out your IV now," Flora says.

"What?" he says, and then there's a tight, tearing sting up near the inside of his right arm. "Ow," he says.

"Don't be a baby," she says, and nudges the IV stand out of his way, drained bag and all. "I declare you officially discharged from this kitchen. Drink lotsa water, don't do any strenuous activity, blah blah whatever. Go away." 

"Thanks," he says grudgingly, and limps out to survey the rest of the house - their safe-house, Sam'd informed him, where they'd formulated their battle plans and hidden from Cas - Cas, who is, at this moment, cozied away in a room of his own, _somewhere upstairs_ , according to Sam, still dead to the world. He's under heavy protection, sigils of every sort chalked around him - including ones to dissuade demons - since it seems everyone, including the demons who've fought on their side, are baying for his blood.

He might as well go visit him, given that he's been barred from leaving the house (several times, all of them _extremely_ insistent), so he climbs a flight of heavy, dark wooden stairs up to the second floor. 

The awful wallpaper does not continue to the second floor landing, he's glad to see. Instead there's a quieter pattern of small, pink roses against a pale yellow background, and it's certainly not something he'd ever choose to put in a house but it isn't immediately offensive, so he figures it's a step up.

From what he's seen so far, the house seems to be large - there's a damn high-vaulted, wood-paneled foyer topped with a dangly crystal chandelier, and who the fuck needs _that_ \- and the upper floor is no different, the hallway stretching on and on, door after door. Cas is in the fifth one down, and Dean slips in quietly, as if Cas was just taking a nap and he had to avoid disturbing him. 

The room is not very large, big enough for one twin bed and a slender nightstand, a trunk shoved underneath. Cas is laying still under a heavy quilt, chest and arms exposed, face still slack and peaceful. On one level, Dean's furious - _you did this, Castiel, you fucked up this world, you brought those leviathan over_ \- but, also, battling with his rage is a sad, senseless pity, and he can't even figure out why. Cas had trapped him, played with him, and he's just - disappointed. Angry, but not vengeful. 

"Weird, isn't it," Sam says behind him, and Dean jumps, unaware of his presence. He was getting sloppy. All this bedrest. 

"I suppose," he says, shuffling over to allow his brother some room. 

"Seeing him asleep, I mean," Sam explains. "He hardly even blinked the whole time he was with us, and this - . It's weird."

"What're we gonna do, Sam?" Dean says. "I don't - . I don't wanna hurt him, but I don't forgive him, either."

"Maybe he won't wake up," Sam offers, and they both stare at the bed in silence, their former friend, their avenging angel, taken so low that their best option is to hope he doesn't open his eyes ever again. 

Cas is breathing, just barely, the quilt rising and falling almost imperceptibly. It's another thing he'd never done when he'd been Castiel, Angel of The Lord, and Sam's right. It's weird. 

"I was thinking, and maybe," Sam says, "maybe he was lonely. That's why he kept you around - since he'd lost everyone else."

"That can't be right," Dean says. "He never even _visited_ me. It was just me, and - "

He cuts off just in time. _Just me, and you_ , and isn't that just fucking great. _In my perfect fantasy world, I was fucking my little brother_ , Dean thinks, and it slams into him all at once like a freight train, leaving him speechless, breathless. Before, he hadn't considered it beyond his mournful hunger, the loss of something he'd wanted so long, but now - . He feels like he's hurt his brother, violated his trust, even though he _knows_ it was just a fragment of a dream, not anything real, no true damage done. Still. He can't meet Sam's eyes, keeps them fixed at the foot of the bed. Watches Cas dream.

"Sam, I - I'm sorta tired," he says. "There any way a man can get an actual bed around here? I'm pretty sick of that table."

Sam jumps and stutters, apologizes in that worried, caring way he does, and lets Dean into a room a few doors down, more-or-less identical to the one Cas is in, only with a few dour sheep paintings nailed up over the bed.

"You all right?" Sam asks, before he goes, and Dean's stomach turns, _he knows, he knows, he's figured it out._ He gives some generic positive response and Sam's not fooled, his face stays crumpled in concern, but he bows out all the same, shutting the door behind him gently. 

Dean hadn't lied - he is tired - but instead of sleeping he sits at the edge of his bed, head in hands. He's fucking sick, wanting what he does, and he can't - he _can't_ be around Sam if he's going to keep on feeling like this. He has to reign it in, the way he'd done as a kid, box it up with the other things he'd sworn not to think about ever. 

But Sam's under his skin. He'd _had_ his brother, his touch and his devotion and his need, and it'd been wonderful and awful at the same time and Jesus Christ he cares so much for the damn kid he thinks he might burst. He can't do this. He can't. 

He has Sam send up dinner to him, and he eats it on his bed, alone and frustrated, drowning in everything he'd thought he'd managed to leave behind years and years ago. Fuck Cas, for making him feel this. Fuck Sam, for being yielding and goofy and kind. Mostly, fuck himself, for being weak and foolish, broken in so many crucial ways.

 

When he'd dreamed of hell, it'd been in loud, ear-shattering surround sound, the unforgettable noises of a whip against flesh, bones broke and tearing through skin, and screams, always screams, the desperate clawing agony of the damned. The whisper-crackle of flame at his back, metal hitting metal. Blood dripping onto stone.

But this - it isn't silence, not at all. He can hear children laughing, a lawn mower, but it's coming to him warped, soft, like he's submerged in water, everything a million miles away. He is looking out through his own eyes, and that, underneath him, is his body, walking barefoot through blurry, indistinct grass, and he has no control over any of it.

He tries to stop his legs, yell, anything, but he can't. His body's going on without him like a wind-up toy and he can't do anything to make it stop. He can't even move his own damn eyes - they're flickering around without his guidance, taking in pristine white-sided houses and well maintained gardens and, leaning against a tree, his brother. He's as vague and smudged as the rest of the scenery, face and neck and shirt all melded together into a fleshy smear, but Dean'd know him anywhere. 

 _"Heya, Sammy,"_ he hears himself say. He didn't - he hadn't meant to say that. It'd just popped out, and - . 

_"Hey, Dean_ ," Sam says. 

Dean knows what he's going to say next before it begins to pass his lips, and he tries to stage a coup, regain command over his throat and voice, but the fight is more than futile and he knows it. _"I love you,"_ he says. 

Sam rears back, the nebulous boundaries of his mouth leaking wider in shock. _"Wh - what did you say to me?"_

 _"I'm in love with you,"_ his body says, and the words taste like acid on his tongue. _"You're all I want. I can't stop thinking about you - the way you'd feel inside me - ."_

Dean wants to thrash and scream and pry his way out of his own skull, gag himself on his own fist so he can rescind his embarrassment, take it all back - most of it's not even true, for fuck's sake - but he can't. He is silent. 

Sam cringes. _"What the fuck, Dean,"_ he says. _"You're disgusting."_

His face is clear now, every mole and follicle accountable for, and Dean can see plainly the nauseated revulsion that's warped his handsome features into a mask. He begins to back away, slipping past the tree.

 _"I don't want to see you again,"_ Sam says. _"I never want to - "_

He wakes up. 

He's panting and, ugh, sweaty, clammy all over, the bedding stuck to his skin. He strips it off, kicking it down to the end of the bed.

He isn't going to fall asleep like this. He pulls on his tattered shirt and limps downstairs to the kitchen, where he finds Sam sitting at the table and sipping out of a steaming mug.

He feels a stab of shamed guilt when he sees his guileless expression, and no - this isn't a universe where he's ever propositioned Sam, never _would_ , but he still feels dirty about it, sickened with himself over things he hadn't done. He tries to shake it off, smooth it over with nonchalance. 

"Hey. Couldn't sleep?"

"Nah."

"Yeah, me neither."

"Made tea. You want some?" 

"...Hell no." 

Sam laughs. "Why'd I even bother, huh?"

"Because you're an idiot," Dean says, settling down in the chair across from him, "and you wouldn't know your brother from a hole in the wall."

Sam's eyes flash with hurt. "Dean, I - "

"I'm just being an asshole, Sammy. C'mon. You know me better than anyone. We're brothers, dude."

"Yeah, I - it's just been a while, you know?"

"And I haven't changed at all. Trust me on this one."

They fall into a comfortable silence. Sam sips his tea, and Dean stares into the hideous wallpaper, the flowers and bows and menacing children swimming before his eyes. He's tired, but if he sleeps - . He doesn't want to sleep. 

"Tell me about it," Sam says after a while.

"Nn? 'Bout what?" 

"When you were - stuck. With Cas."

Dean'd been absorbed with the wallpaper but now he's instantly on alert, his neck and shoulders gone tense. "Like I told you - nothing much to say," he tries, tacking on a nervous laugh.

Sam studies him carefully. "Hey - you remember when you told me about hell? It was easier after, right? You - "

" _Sam_! No! It wasn't anything like hell! Cas was - I think he genuinely wanted to keep me happy, even if he didn't really get how. There was a house, all right? A little house with a porch and a front yard. And I had a steady job at a garage. That enough for you?" 

"Sorry, man," Sam says, holding up his hands. "I just - you aren't sleeping for a reason, right?"

Dean runs a hand over his face. "It's not that. I mean, it is, but it's - can we just drop this, please?"

"Okay."

There are a few blissful moments of silence, and then:

"Seriously, though, a _house_? And a _job_?"

"Shaddup, Sam."

"Never pegged you as Suzy Homemaker."

"I'll Suzy Homemaker _you_ , dickhead." 

"Don't suppose you had a loving wife, too? Kids?"

His stomach turns, and he grimaces. If only Cas'd gone for the loving wife angle. But no, he had to answer Dean's deepest, most forbidden dreams, the things he wanted the most but couldn't ever, ever have, not in this waking world. It wasn't _fair_. 

He can't sit here with Sam any longer. "'M gonna go to bed," he mumbles, and stands.

"Uh. Okay?"

He's almost at the doorway when Sam calls for him. He hitches up his sweatpants, which keep getting caught under the heels of his feet, and looks at his brother wearily. 

"D'you miss her?" Sam says.

"Huh? Who?"

"The girl. Who Cas set you up with."

Dean watches his brother, features gone soft in the dim light of the room, hair in messy bed-tangled waves, and he aches. "...Yeah. All the damn time."

"She wasn't real," Sam says.

"Yeah, I know that now," Dean says. 


	5. Chapter 5

His little room is cold and lonely, empty without the sound of his brother's breath, and even though his head and eyes are heavy with fatigue he lies unsleeping for a very long time, staring at the low, scalloped ceiling. The bed is comfortable - more so than their usual haunts - and the quilt thick, but there is a space at his right where, his mind tells him, Sam should be, and isn't.

He knows this is wrong. It is not something that has ever happened, or ever will. The last time they'd shared a bed, really, _really_ shared a bed, in actual been-there reality, it'd been in Michigan during a howling windy thunderstorm, the both of them too old to cling to each other but too afraid to care until after when their father'd scolded them for being pansies, and then that'd been that. What he wants for now is not the same as this childhood remembrance, tinged with fear and, later, shame, his father huge and distant in anger, _how're you boys supposed to be hunters if you can't even weather a damn storm._ But he's got this reflexive half-memory, the comforting indentation of Sam at his side, his heavy, sun-hot body sloping the mattress inward with inescapable gravity, reeling Dean in and, by morning, finding them crushed together all over again, and he misses it. He wants it, and he misses it. 

When he finally does sleep, it is dreamless, light as fog, and it lifts away only hours later leaving him unrested and burnt-out. There is no window in his room but there's a sliver of shimmery natural light nudging in around the door frame from the hallway and from this he figures, probably, it must be morning. For half a second he considers submerging his head underneath the soft cavern of his quilt and staying there, surviving off his own moist, sleep-hot breath until he chokes on it, suffocates on the sweat-rich gravedirt smell. 

But, Jesus, fuck that. He's not a goddamn, a, a _girl_ , or something. There's work to be done, and shit to be killed, and he can't sit back and cry or what the fuck ever. Maybe he is shitty and terrible and more than a little gross but the world is a disaster zone and he's wasting everyone's time sitting around like this. He doesn't deserve to mope. Fuck that.

The hardwood floor is cold against his bare feet, and he wonders wistfully where his socks've gone off to. 

He finds a tiny closet of a bathroom across the hall and takes a lukewarm, much-needed towel-bath, dipping a cleanish green washcloth under the dribbling faucet and scrubbing off the remaining blood and leviathan gunk from his skin. Flora's washed him up some around the wounds, but the rest is downright nasty: grit in his hair and under his nails, and dried streaks of mud trapped in the fold between thigh and hip. It's not nearly enough and he'd like to have a shower, water pressure up to eleven, hot enough to pink his skin and boil his mind into a happy daze, but he knows better than to get his wounds saturated like that - and Christ, what wounds they are. He's bruised purple-black all over, shoulders and jaw and shins and knees, the mottled mess of his skin cut through in places with Flora's neat stitches. They climb his legs like branching ivy and spiral his arms so thick he thinks they might be keeping him from falling apart right there, heavy puzzle-piece sections of his forearm breaking free and rolling underneath the dusty cabinet. He looks like he's been dangled into a blender. 

Which, in a way, he has. That leviathan had some serious chompers, and still, somehow, he's alive. He'd gotten patched up by a damn demon - and _excuse_ him if he isn't about to send a fruit basket to the thing - and swaddled away in some safehouse, and now his brother is just downstairs, probably leafing through a book and toying with some nasty multigrain toast, sleepy-eyed and hunched over in his chair, tongue poked out of his mouth in concentration (and Dean loves him so fucking much it's like he's swallowed hot coals, like he's being ripped apart from the inside).

Shut up. Shut up. Get dressed. Stop thinking about - _that_. Stop. 

There are clean clothes folded on the nightstand of his room, sweats and a plain grey t-shirt, and he has no fucking idea where they've come from but if he's about to start getting picky now, well. It's a little late. He puts them on - winces as he does it, the tear and sting of his stretched arms, his calves sliced to ribbons - stomps down the stairs, cuts through the sitting room, and stops dead, because holy shit. It's Cas. 

Cas, sitting at the table, half-empty plate of scrambled eggs in front of him, hands folded neatly in his lap. He is concious and well awake, his bright, intense eyes snapping up to evaluate Dean as soon as he's stopped in the doorway. 

His first instinct's to yell for his brother, but Sam's at the stove right behind him with a skillet and a spatula, styrofoam carton of eggs open near his elbow. His throat doesn't seem to be working right anyway, choking around what had promised to be a startled yelp and strangling it into a wheeze. 

"Good morning," Cas says. He's wearing a royal blue robe with a monogrammed BH on the breast, and he's entirely too nonchalant for a guy who possibly ruined the world.  
Sam turns around, brandishing his spatula like a baton, bits of egg winging off and sticking to the cabinets. "Uh. Hi. Cas's awake."

"I'm Cas," Cas says helpfully, waving. The sleeve of his robe flops down around his arm and it's just so damn _wrong_ seeing all that pale, living skin on a being that'd once threatened to return him to hell that Dean's response dies on his tongue, leaving behind a sour, dead-animal taste. 

"You sure are, buddy," Sam says, patting his shoulder. "I'm gonna go have a chat with my friend, okay? You stay here. Finish your eggs."

They duck out into the next room, which is dominated by a pair of immense wing-backed horsehair sofas. Sam crowds him into the corner and warns him, through a complicated series of eyebrow wiggles and nose scrunches, to stay _quiet_. Dean forces himself to swallow a string of expletives. 

"I came in this morning and he was just... sitting there, in bed," Sam whispers (too close, way too fucking close, and Dean tries to flatten himself against the wall). "First thing he said was, _where am I_?" 

"He didn't run?" Dean mutters back. "He didn't even try?"

"No, he just - he sat," Sam says. "And he told me he was hungry, and then he asked me if I knew what his name was." 

Dean's brain short circuits. " _What_?" he hisses. "Why would he - _what_?" 

"He says he doesn't remember anything. Not a single thing - who I am, who _he_ is, how he got here."

"Nothing?"

"I tried to get to him - told him Nathanael was on his way, that we were gonna give him up. He was just - . Blank."

Dean rubs a hand over his mouth. "What else does he know? Did you tell him much?"

"No, just that he was in an accident, and now he's here. Maybe I should tell him what he's done, but it just... it couldn't matter to him the way it should. It wouldn't be his guilt." 

"You believe him? That he's gone _Vanilla Sky_ on us?"

Sam looks lost. "I don't know," he says. "I don't know. I guess all those souls coulda wiped him out, but I can't really - I don't trust him, you know? All of this has been... man. It's been too much."

Dean peers over his shoulder, where he can just barely make out the arm of Cas' robe, the suggestion of a bare leg sheltered underneath the table, a knobby, cratered knee. His face is out of sight, tucked behind the doorframe, but Dean's sure he's got the same, emptily innocent expression he'd had when he'd first come downstairs, the same puzzled smile and flushed cheeks and ruffled, sleepy bedhead. 

"Jesus fucking Christ," he says.

"Pretty much, yeah," Sam says. "I don't - how are we supposed to deal with this? How can we - ? We can't punish him, but I can't just... he can't just sit there." 

"Yeah," Dean says, and has Sam leaned in even _closer_? Fucking hell, they hadn't started out like this, had they, hardly a foot between them? The hell is Sam's problem? Or - fuck, was it his? Had he been moving in the whole time, without even noticing? Fuck. Fuck. 

"Are you - um? Okay?" Sam says, reaching out. "You look kinda jumpy?" 

"I'm _great_ ," Dean says, dodging away. "Just fucking starving. Hope you made a fuckin' ton of eggs, or else I'm gonna start eating Cas'." 

"I made plenty," Sam bitches, and hell yeah, crisis diverted. "There's toast, too, if you want it." 

"Ehh. Bacon?" Dean says, following him back into the kitchen. 

" _No_ ," Sam says. "I don't trust the meat in this house." 

"Uh. Why - ?" 

Sam directs a meaningful headtilt at Cas (translation: _not while he's listening, idiot_ ), who waves at them with his fork and smiles. 

"Uh, hi," Dean says, sitting across from him. "I'm, uh. I'm Dean." Sam's scooping a healthy portion of eggs onto a chipped china plate and listening intently.

"Hello, Dean," Cas says. "Do you know Sam? Are we friends?"

"Yyy. Yes?"

"That's very good," Cas says. "I'm lucky to know you. You've been very kind."

"Well - that's not really - " 

"It's Crowley who's been our host, actually, so I guess you should thank him," Sam interrupts, sliding Dean a heaping plate before sitting down himself, two pieces of toast clutched in his hand. They are, as Dean'd suspected, multigrain, and totally gross. The eggs were probably free-range vegan nonsense, too.

"Oh yeah?" Dean says, ignoring the pang of sickening affection his brother's dietary habits inspire. "Crowley been putting him up?" 

"Well, it's - this whole thing, it's his house," Sam says, biting into his toast. "One'a the ones, uh, Lilith and her people didn't get to."

"Oh, great," Dean says. It doesn't escape him that they're all eating off the table he'd nearly bled to death on. "Crowley's house. Awesome."

"Dean, please - ." 

"Nah, I'm not gonna - I won't," Dean says, and is surprised to find, that actually, he isn't. "I just - I wanna go back to normal, okay? No more fraternizing with - . With Crowley's type."

"Soon," Sam says. "I promise. Right now we need him, but we'll be back at each other's throats in no time, don't worry." 

"Crowley isn't a friend?" Cas says.

" _No way_ ," Dean says. 

"Yes, he is," Sam says, at about the same time. 

Cas looks back and forth at the two of them as if he's watching a tennis match. "Is - " 

"He's an ally," Sam says gently. "And he's helping us."

"With _what_?" Dean demands. "Dunno if you remember, but when the leviathan showed up he turned tail. Left us the sword, but I'm not exactly giving him points for _that_." 

"He's letting us use the house," Sam points out. "And you'd probably be hamstrung, if not for Flora."

"'Cept now we're just sitting here, doing jack and squat. S'great we're safe and all, sure, but there's just this, this _little_ problem maybe we oughta be looking at?"

"We're _looking_ at it," Sam says. "We just can't - we've got the sword, and that's _it_. And you nearly died, taking out just _one_. There are - what, a hundred of the things out there? A thousand? More? We don't _know_. We can't fight something like that." 

"What d'you mean, we can't?" Dean says, his fingers clenching tight about his fork. "We've gone up against worse odds, and kicked ass doing it. You can't just give up, man." 

"I'm not! We aren't! Just right now, we can't charge ahead. We need to figure out our options, maybe see if there's something we can't do on a larger scale."

"Research," Dean says, mock-enthusiastic. 

"Yes, Dean, _research_. Crowley's got a decent library, and we've got some people picking it over. I was gonna go join in after breakfast. You should come." 

"I can help too," Cas says, determined. "I'm a good reader, I think." 

"You wouldn't even know what the hell to look for," Dean says, not unkindly, but Cas flinches all the same. 

"If you told me, I would. I'd like to help - Sam, please - ." 

Sam is shaking his head. "You probably can't, but - look, why don't you come along, and see what you can do? He's got to stick with us anyway," he adds as an aside. "That or go back up to his room."

Dean shrugs. "Guess we're gonna hang out, Cas," he says. 

Cas' face lights up with a huge, giddy grin, like it's the best news he's had in his entire life. Dean tries to smile back, but finds that he's - he can't. He doesn't know why, but he can't.

 

The library is dark and cramped, lacking for natural light, all the available windows covered up by tall, over-laden bookshelves. Every surface is cluttered with stacks of heavy, old-looking books, save the few patches of floor - and a solitary threadbare ottoman - where the small research team has taken root, and even they have large volumes spread over their laps. It smells like parchment and quiet and Dean can't imagine Crowley spending any valuable time in here whatsoever. 

The team looks up when they enter, their eyes tracking immediately onto Cas. The one nearest to the door, a middle-aged woman with greying, bob-cut brown hair, pulls a sneer and snaps her book shut. "Come to check our progress?" she says. 

"Um. No?" Sam says.

"And you've brought _Cas_. Lovely. Guess we'll be going, then." 

"No, it's okay, you can - " 

" _Really_. I'd rather be elsewhere," she says, and rises to her feet, beckoning at the others. They shuffle out behind her, keeping a wide, unfriendly berth around Cas, who looks confused and a little put out. 

Sam just shrugs and nudges Cas over to the ottoman. "Here, you can look through this pile," he says. "Dean and I'll start on the far shelf."

Dean's pretty sure the pile Sam's pointed Cas toward is full of previously reviewed discards, but if it keeps the kid busy, who cares. He steps up to a shelf and trails a finger over one ridged line of books, in turns pristine and bent-backed, cracked along the spine. Most of them are arcane texts, titles in Greek and Hebrew and other, less familiar alphabets, but there are a few leatherbound classics mixed in alongside the spellbooks and bestiaries: a well-read copy of _Siddhartha_ , a short, fat _Pride and Prejudice_ jammed in upside-down between two ugly, burnt grimoires. He tries to yank out a small, green volume and the cover sloughs off in his hand, leaving the book's naked pages wedged in the shelf. He takes a furtive look around and kicks the cover underneath the shelf. The damn thing's in French, anyway, which is a stupid fucking language to begin with. No damage done. 

They read, and read, and read. There's nothing, not a single mention of leviathan or purgatory or anything useful whatsoever, though Dean does learn a whole lot about blood spells. If Sam ever needs to raise and control a walking corpse, Dean's the guy to ask. Rounding up and killing a bunch of leviathan, now, that's a whole different matter. 

He's finding it especially hard to concentrate because Sam's sat down next to him to read, his thighs inches away, both their backs resting against the open mouth of the same bookshelf. Sam looks well-rested - better rested, anyway, than he'd been when Dean'd woken up after his run in with the leviathan, no longer as wrung out from worry - and clean, his hair falling shampoo-soft around his newly shaven face, the sweet smelling skin of his arms and shoulders and neck too close, too real. Dean feels small and dingy in comparison, conscious of phantom dirt under his nails and across his cheeks, imagined miasma of illness roiling close about his body. He's too weak to move away, hates himself for it, hates that he craves proximity as much as he does, enough that he's willing to sacrifice Sam's wellbeing for it, for quick meaningless moments of breath and touch. Whenever Sam moves his eyes snap away from the page and he has to steel his jaw so not to look over and watch, force himself bodily to focus on Cas instead, a more harmless study than his brother bright and beautiful at his side. 

"Lunch break," he announces, once it becomes too much to bear. 

"Dean, it's not even noon," Sam says, and Dean ignores him, dropping his useless book on the floor and stalking out. Sam makes a muffled noise of protest somewhere behind him. 

Cas follows him into the sitting room. "I'm sorry," he says. 

"What? What for?"

"I don't know," Cas says. "No one will tell me, but - I did something, didn't I? I can tell by the way you look at me, like - like I'm saying all the wrong things. And you're being kind. Some of the people here just glare at me, and - no one tries to hurt me, but - . What happened, Dean? What did I _do_?" 

"I'm really not the guy to ask, Cas," Dean says. "I was asleep for most of it. Though that was 'cuz of you, so." 

"I... put you to sleep?" Cas says, squinting in confusion.

"Sorta, you - . Ugh. Look, man, I shouldn't," Dean says. "Sam said it's better for you to stay in the dark, okay? I trust him. So should you."

"Dean," Cas pleads, close to tears. "Please. I can't - if I've done something wrong, I need to know." 

"Fuck, woah, okay. Don't cry, okay? Wow, I - . Please don't cry," Dean says, panicking just a little. He can deal with Sam's tears, sure, but Cas'? Dude used to be _God_. It's weird enough to see him blink, let alone begin to sob like an overgrown toddler in the middle of Crowley's plush, floral sitting room. 

Cas wipes his nose on the sleeve of his robe, and it leaves a filmy trail of slime across the cuff. "I don't like when they're mad at me," he says in a small, broken voice. "I hate it. I just want to fix it." 

Dean gives a bitter laugh. "You _can't_ , dude. 'Specially not now. You're outta the game, and that's probably for the best."

"Then tell me the rules again. I can - " 

"It's not 'cuz you can't remember, it's - you had a _lot_ of power, okay? You did some fucked-up shit with it, and Sam had to pry it outta you before you did something _really_ stupid. And now you're just - ." _A baby in a bathrobe._ "Powerless." 

"What kind of... shit?" Cas says. 

"I don't know if it's - " 

"What did I do to _you_ , then," Cas interrupts. " _That_ you can tell me, at least. Please." 

"It wasn't anything. Hardly even matters."

"Yes, it does," Cas insists.

"You trapped me, okay?" Dean says. "You built a stupid-ass dream world and trapped me in it for, like, three months, and whenever I tried to figure out what the fuck was going on, you fucked with my mind. You set up all this happy family bullshit and let me get used to - you made me like it, and meanwhile in the real world Sam was fucking around with demons and probably almost dying, 'cuz I wasn't there to protect him, thanks to you. _That's_ what you did to me. Happy?"

He realizes his hands are balled into fists and he's yelling, almost, definitely raising his voice, and he'd known the whole thing had fucked with his head but not that he was this upset over it, this upset with Cas. He'd been angry for Sam, sure, for the whole rest of the world, all the devastating, unfixable things it'd suffered through, but he wasn't supposed to get all torn up over himself. He wasn't - . He wasn't anything at all. 

"I'm sorry, Dean," Cas says, and it's such a hollow, meaningless apology that Dean can't help but laugh in his face. 

"Doesn't matter," he says. Sam had been right - of course he'd been right, he's always right - nothing this Cas ever said could mean anything, because it's not the right Cas, the Cas that matters, the one with all his experiences and broken loyalties and selfish power-grabbing still intact and aware. He wants to talk to that Cas, tell him what a goddamn fuckup he is, try and bully a little sense into him. This Cas is just some guy, and Dean doesn't want his pity. 

"I - Dean?" Cas tries again. "I'm - I am, I'm sorry, I - ." 

"Don't bother, Cas," he says, waving him off. "Just don't." 

He turns his back on Cas, makes to leave the room. He catches Cas' reflection in the glass curio cabinet set by the doorway, and he looks lost, arms hanging limp at his sides. Dean has nothing to say to him. 

The kitchen is empty and still and Dean allows himself a few moments of stupid melancholy, rests his elbows on the counter next to the stove and stares into the dark material of the cabinets. Sam doesn't need his help anyway - hell, Sam'd be better off without him. 

Maybe he could take this campaign on his own - grab the sword, hit the road, murder whatever the fuck he came across. He hardly knows what he's fighting, hardly knows what he's got to do, but he'd be more use out there with a blade in his hand than here, cooped up with a former god and a brother he wants more from than he could ever possibly have. This is bullshit. This whole thing is bullshit. 

"Uh," Sam says behind him, and he jumps, does a whole goddamned one-eighty and smacks his temple against the cabinet. 

"Ow," he says, grabbing at his head.

Sam darts forward laughing, arms outstretched. "You okay?" he asks, gleeful but also more than a little concerned. One of his hands goes to Dean's shoulder and the other to his cheek, and Dean dodges, narrowly misses banging his head against the wood a second time.

"I'm fine, god _damn_. Jesus, dude, you always been so touchy-feely?" he grumbles.

"Sorry, man," Sam says, looking decidedly not at all sorry. "It's been - . Well, you know."

"I guess," Dean says. "Doesn't mean I wanna - ." 

Only it does, it really, really _does_ , and he's sure Sam's able to read that in his forced pause, the way he has to break off and stare down the linoleum. He's sure Sam's wearing that judicious, squinty look he gets when he's caught on to something and is trying to puzzle it together and he doesn't think he'd be able to face it right now, see Sammy figure through the horrible dirty thing he's been hiding for too long now (maybe forever, maybe since before he'd been born), watch the realization spread across his face and then, on its tail, crippling disgust. 

"Hey, seriously," Sam says softly. "You okay?" 

"Fine," he snaps, and God, oh, no, Sam's radiating worried pity and that's somehow maybe worse, even, and it makes Dean want to tear and rail until he's wiped every hint of gentle self-sacrificing compassion right off his brother's idiotic face. His brain supplies him with awful rosy memories of Sam kissing him after a headache, holding him close to make the world quit its wobbling, and he struggles for breath under the press of all these saccharine things that hadn't ever really been, grips at the counter like it's a raft. Is he shaking? - yes, he's shaking, over _this_. 

"Fucking Cas," he says.

"Yeah," Sam says. "Fucking Cas." 

"I'm sorry," Crowley says. "Who's doing _what_ to Cas?" 

Dean tries to cringe back and also tug Sam behind him all at once, which manifests itself as an awkward little shimmy that gets the both of them absolutely nowhere. 

"Mind _knocking_?" Dean snaps.

"It's _my_ kitchen. I'll do what I please," Crowley says from the entrance to the room. "I feel the _both_ of you need the reminder, since neither bothered to call when Sleeping Beauty out there awoke. And I thought we were _friends_."

"We were busy - "

"What, with _breakfast_? He's an _angel_ , numbskull. He doesn't eat."

"What?" Dean says. "A - you sure?" He's got a deathgrip on Sam's bicep, the warm muscle shifting underneath the vice of his fingers. He rationalizes that it's necessary to keep him away from Crowely, and continues to hold on.

"'Course I'm sure. And you would've known earlier, if you'dve bothered to call." 

"Cas is really an angel?" Dean says. "He still got all his mojo?"

"He still has his _grace_ , yes," Crowley says, rolling his eyes. "I think he's forgotten how to use it, though, the moron." 

"But you think he could? That he could relearn how to be an angel again?" Sam says. "Or, maybe - his memory is tied in with his grace, and when he's able to access one - ."

"I've got no clue," Crowley says. "But I'd like to think so, yes. If we can get him back to himself - "

"He can help kill the leviathan," Dean says. 

"Mm. No. One better," Crowley says. "He can lock them away again."

"Lock them away?" Sam asks. "As in, back in Purgatory? 'Cuz I remember suggesting that before, and _you_ said it was impossible."

"Ah, it _was_. But now we've got our key."

"Cas?" Dean says, glancing toward the doorway. "Cas is a key? To Purgatory?"

"No, idiot. Does he look like a key to you? He can make one, though. Or, at least, tell us how."

"And we've still got the pipe," Sam says, eyes glinting. "So all he has to do is open it, and we can lead 'em in."

"Aren't you glad I came?" Crowley says.

"Yeah, okay, easier said than done," Dean says. "Anyone got an idea how we're gonna jog his memories?"

 

The plan is this: find a leviathan, stick Cas in front of it, and hope to Christ he catches on quick. 

It is a terrible plan. 

"I still think we should get him to fry a demon," Dean says in the car. He's been relegated to the passenger's seat - _again_ \- due to both his injuries and the fact that he isn't sure where exactly they are. There is a grey, rocky beach, he thinks, and lots of scraggly trees, and beyond that he is unsure. 

"I still think we should get him to fry _you_ ," Crowley says. 

"Okay, kids," Sam says, and takes a turn probably a little more roughly than was necessary. "Be good." 

Cas hasn't said a word since he'd accepted the idea, and he's been sitting silent in the back next to Crowley for the past twenty or so minutes, his face unreadable. Dean wonders if he's doing it on purpose, or - and this is the more likely option - if he still doesn't know quite how to operate a human face, and emoting hasn't yet become natural to him.

Dean doubts it ever will. 

He watches him anyway, hopes to high heaven that this'll work out. Wonders if, maybe, it'll be easier to hate him once he's Castiel, Angel of The Lord. If it'll make more sense. 

"Leviathan! _Leviathan_!" Crowley yelps, and the car shudders to a halt with a dreadful screech, swerving sideways across the narrow, winding road. 

"I don't see anything," Dean says, rubbing his shoulder where it's banged against the window.

"By that rock - "

" _Which_ rock? Oh - ." 

It is smaller than the one he'd grappled with earlier, though not by much, and the same, oily tarrish black, the same bubbling, squirming body, the same slick residue left behind on everything it touches. This one has a dribbly feature sprouting off its front that might be construed as a snout, and it drags against the ground as it shifts gelatinous between the trees on its stumpy little caterpillar legs.

"Didn't think it'd be so close to the boundaries," Sam says, watching it through the windshield. 

"Better for us, at least," Crowley says. "If it goes wrong, we can always jump back from where we came."

"It won't," Cas says, and everyone turns to look at him. His face is bunched up into a sort of determined goofy ferocity, mismatched against his rumpled hair and borrowed, too-large theme park souvenir t-shirt ( _I Rode The Whiplash And Lived!_ it brags in flaming red 3D font, over a clipart rollercoaster decal). Dean's seen him pull off ferocious before, and wrathful, and unforgiving, but that was back when he had all of his God-given grace behind him. Now he just looks slightly winded, and maybe confused. 

"Good to know _you're_ sure," Crowley says. 

"We trust you, Cas," Sam says. 

Dean snorts. 

"I'll make this right," Cas says, fixing his sorrowful blue eyes on Dean. "I promise." 

And then he charges from the car.

"Oh, fuck," Sam says. " _Cas_ \- hang _on_ \- " 

"Well, at least he took the sword," Crowley says, following them gamely out onto the street. Cas is, somehow, already way ahead of them, and the leviathan's caught on, piled itself up into a glistening, towering mass to meet him. 

"We shoulda had him fry a demon," Dean pants.

"Shoulda - fried - _you_ ," Crowley wheezes. 

Cas takes a wild swing at the thing and misses by at least a foot, overbalancing and stumbling over at just the right moment, so that the snout - which is now spiked at the tip, whip-like - snaps _just_ over his shoulder, lashing out into air. Its stumpy legs have lengthened and corded in a similar fashion, and are now squirming sinuously, poised to attack. It squeals. 

Sam gets there first and tackles Cas out of the way just as it lashes out with several of its twining, eerie limbs, catches him in his stomach for his trouble. Dean can hear the breath punch out of him as he hits the ground, still on top of Cas, and _fuck_ that, he isn't letting his brother deal with this thing on his own. 

"Hey! Handsome!" he hollers, drawing his machete from his side. "Yeah, I'm talking to you!" 

It rears up and underneath the outcropping of its snout is its pitted, toothful mouth, deep and vicious and hungry. Dean gives it a wink, twirls his blade so that it flashes in the sun. _C'mon_ , he urges it, racing in nearer. _C'mon, c'mon_ -

It strikes at him - quick, too quick - and he cuts at it as it comes, but his machete just bounces off its glistening hide and it's able to hit him hard and blunt against his collarbone. He can feel it give way underneath the force of the blow and he bites the yell off behind his teeth, forces the agony back as he bounces painful onto the ground, springs right back up. _No time, no time._ He thinks some of his stitches have torn undone from the fall and that's just fucking well too bad, isn't it. No time. 

It's tripped up Cas, too, and he's gone face-down onto the dirt, sword spinning out onto the road - so much for their plan, though really, the fuck did he expect - and Sam jumps in without hesitation, tries to keep it from landing its bulk atop Cas' prone form. It swings at him again and its limbs bounce off nothing, off air, and there's Crowley just behind Sam with his hands fisted in front of him like a conjurer, sweat dripping down his ruddy face -

There is an opening. Maybe. Dean dives for the sword, busted arm held close to his body, other stretched out as far as he can make it, grasping, _almost_ , but not quite. Not enough. The leviathan's slimy limbs wind around his legs, his middle, and slam him up against the rough bark of a nearby tree, jarring his shoulder and forcing his ribs in unnatural directions. It is slick and greasy against his skin, unnaturally cold and smelling of meat, and God, what a shitty way to die. _Glad I ain't an anime girl,_ he thinks hazily, _'cuz I've seen where this goes before._

Its snout flaps open and bisects down the middle and it's got even more mouth, now, more teeth and gaping ruinous space, and it lunges for him maw-first, breath cloying and rotted and all around him, drowning him, rows and rows and rows of shining, razored teeth and a flaking, pustuled tongue. 

And then there is light. It is blinding, and blue, and with it the leviathan's limbs recede and snake back away from him, dropping him to the ground, and for a moment the pain is overwhelming and then it is nothing at all. He can feel the hilt of the sword at his fingertips and he struggles to get it between both his hands, juggles it around until he's got a firm grip and plunges it forward. He hits rubbery flesh and then yielding, brackish insides, and he drives it in and in and, when it can go no further, _twists_. 

Hands pull him away, onto his back. The light clears away and he can see Sam leaning over him, huge and protective. Off to the side is the leviathan, leaking black and wilting, like a popped hot air balloon, into the grass. 

"Cas," Sam says. His legs are spread out in a wide, defensive stance, his machete out and ready near his midsection, like he's trying to sheild him. This is dumb, because Dean's already killed the thing that's been trying to murder them. No threat here. Also, he can take care of himself, thanks. 

Just to prove it, he sits up. Nothing hurts at all, not even a little, not even his smashed-in collarbone. He's pretty sure, actually, that it isn't smashed in anymore at all. 

"What the hell," he rasps, rotating his shoulder around. It feels pretty good, actually, like he'd gotten a good stretch in between getting smooshed up against the tree and getting his corneas burned out. 

A small bead of panic rattles in his chest. He was _there_ , he was getting shoved around just a moment ago, he could _swear_ by it. He remembers vividly the crushed heat of his ribs, the tug and tear of his stitches along his legs, except now when he looks down there aren't any stitches at all, just the unbroken, hardy skin of his arms, his legs, no puncture marks or embedded rock, no sign that it'd happened at all. There is nothing and he is having trouble breathing because what if it _was_ , what if it'd been all in his head and all of this had been fantasy, and he's still trapped - always been trapped - 

Somewhere very far away the others are speaking, loud and urgent and, on the part of Sam, angry, only none of it matters because he's not sure it's real. Cas might be crying a little - _God forgive me_ , Dean hears him say, and it catches in his mind, repeats itself over and over: God forgive me, God forgive me, God forgive me. His stomach lurches. He can't do this again. 

He drags himself to his feet, uses the sword as a prop. His Dad'd kill him, seeing him abuse a good weapon like that, but his Dad isn't here right now. And neither, maybe, is Sam, or Crowely, or any of these trees he'd thought he'd been thrown around against. None of this makes sense. 

Sam must catch him moving out of the corner of his eye, because in a heartbeat he's spun back to take Dean's arm in his own.

"Careful," he says, his face alight with worry, and then he sees the smooth flesh of Dean's arms, the ease with which he holds his shoulder, and his jaw drops. "What - ? How - ?"

"I healed him," Cas says, his voice shaky, tired. "When I forced the leviathan away - I was able to heal Dean's injuries, too."

"You remembered," Dean says, and that's - yes. That's all it'd been. Cas had remembered, and he'd graced out, healed him in the blast. That - he can accept that. 

He feels a little stupid, and a lot paranoid, and he makes himself push away from his brother. Of _course_ this shit's real, fucking hell. One vacation to a faux universe and he's seeing fabricated realities all over the place. It hadn't even felt the same, no stifling pressure, no mind-twisting dizziness. And Cas had done this before, too, the whole healing shtick, so really, he ought to have been ready. It'd caught him off guard, is all. 

"You're healed?" Sam asks. "Everything's - you're okay?" 

"Seems like," Dean says. He balances the sword in his hands, and it gleams, dripping dark ooze. 

If. If it turns out, somehow, that he's trapped, he's got this, at least, his leviathan-slaying sword. He can try to go after Cas, and if that fails - . He's got options.  
But. It is real, so he doesn't have to worry about that kind of thing, he's pretty sure. Like, ninety percent.

"I owe you that much," Cas says. "Dean. I never meant to hurt you."

"That's lovely," Crowley says. "Really, it is. Touching, in all sorts of ways. But we've got more pressing matters to attend to, haven't we? Unless you disagree?"

"Yes, I - yes. I will open Purgatory for you. I only wish - "

"Great! Excellent," Crowley says. "In that case, we'll be on our way, and we'll call you when it's time. Do try not to die between now and then." 

Cas nods stoically, like this is all he was ready to expect, and in a way Dean's okay with it. Cas'd fucked up, and badly, but also, he's still Cas, now more than ever. 

Sam makes the decision for both of them. "Hey, Cas, hang on," he says, and Cas stares, cocks his head, doesn't move a muscle otherwise. "Why don't we just - how 'bout you take us all home, okay? We can work it out from there." 

"Home?" Cas says, and Dean could swear his eyes have gone glassy with tears. "I wouldn't think - you would still allow me to stay with you?"

"For fuck's sake," Crowley says.

"Well - yeah," Sam says. "We coudn't just, you know. Throw you out, or whatever. You're our friend, man."

"Friend," Cas says ("Oh, fucking _hell_ ," Crowley says). "Sam. You are - . Thank you. I will do what I can."

"You better," Crowley says. "Tweedle dee might've forgiven you, but _I_ haven't. You _stole_ my _souls_. You _murdered_ my best people."

"I am sorry," Cas says. "To all of you. You trusted me, and I was - . I don't know how to make this right." 

"You can start by offing the leviathan," Crowley says. "They _are_ your fault."

"I'm sorry," Castiel says. He looks miserable, beat-down and hopeless, and Dean can commiserate, almost. All they can do is keep climbing. 

"C'mon, man," Dean says. "Let's fix this." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this rushed, kinda weird chapter brought to you by: my vacation to the carribean!!! updates will probably be more regular now that im back hooray


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i completely rewrote this gdamn chapter three times. THREE
> 
> EDIT :: and then i added more onto the end bc i jumped the gun re: publishing it aghhghgadaj;jdg i am SO done with this chapter

They have until the full moon - a little less than a week - for Cas to get what he needs and open up Purgatory. He takes over the kitchen, supposedly to sort out the ritual and piece together ingredients, but mostly what he seems to do is sit in a chair and stare at the table. New shit piles up over time: a brass bowl, a collection of greenery, vials of blood - but Dean never sees him move from where he's sitting. Every time he wanders past the kitchen doorway, Cas is in the same place with the same dull expression on his face, shoulders slumped and listless.

When he breaks and finally gives into his need to enter the kitchen (and okay, maybe it was only halfway through the second day, but a man can only go so long living off the candy he's squirreled away in his car and the occasional sandwich he's forced his brother to make him), Cas' giant watery blue eyes lock onto him right away.

" _Dean_ ," he says, voice dangerously wobbly.

"Uh. Hey," Dean says, edging around the table to the refrigerator. He keeps Cas squarely in his peripherals, unwilling to turn his back on him but also wary of facing him head-on due to the risk of seeming open to conversation.

But Cas is Cas, and he doesn't pick up on things like _body language_ or _horrible awkward tension_ , so he dives in head-first regardless. "Dean. I am so sorry."

"Yeah, you said," Dean says. They're running short on beer, he discovers. Only a couple cans left. 'S been the damn demons, probably. They've been tearing through all their good food like they actually _need_ it, the pricks.

"Yes, but - Dean, you don't understand," Cas says, and in his peripherals Dean can see him lean forward earnestly in his chair. "I wasn't able to express myself fully."

"Nah, man. I got it."

There are so many damn vegetables in this fridge - two whole drawers full, and a fat head of lettuce propped up on the bottom shelf besides. Dean scowls at it.

"You don't, not really," Cas is saying. "I need to tell you, please. Everything is - it's all so wrong, Dean, and it's my fault, and if I can't fix it - ."

"'M sure you can," Dean says, nudging a bottle of ketchup to the side. There are Hot Pockets, but he'd have to heat those up, and therefore stay in the kitchen longer, so they aren't an option. Maybe if he pilfers just a couple slices of ham, a little cheese, he can take it all into the parlor and assemble a sandwich in there instead.

"I regret so much of what I've done. I regret what I've done to you. I was so - I couldn't see past my own surety, and I hurt you so badly - "

" _Dude_ ," Dean says, and turns, baggie of lunch meat in hand and jar of pickles tucked into his elbow. "You didn't hurt me, okay? You kinda - I mean, it was fucked up, all right? And it maybe - I didn't enjoy it, sure, but you didn't hurt me."

"I robbed you of your autonomy," Cas says. "Everything we were fighting for, and I - I took it away, just like that."

"You were a pretty shitty God," Dean agrees. "But what's done is done, okay? You said it yourself. It's shitty and I wished you'd _listened_ to us in the first place, for fuck's sake, but you can't change the past."

"I've done so much," Cas says, the picture of abject misery. "So much wrong."

"So cut out this pity party bullshit and fuckin' _fix it_."

"You are angry."

"What, you thought if you explained yourself, I'd go ahead and let it go? 'Course I'm angry," he snaps, and the force of it startles him. "I know you're trying, Cas," he sighs, trying to gentle his voice, ease his posture. "But you - it's hard to be impartial here, y'know?"

"I understand. I don't expect forgiveness from you, but - I will make it up to you, Dean, I swear it." He straightens up, suddenly alert, like he's remembered something important. "About your brother - "

"Woah, okay," Dean says, holding up a hand. "This has been fun and all, but I'm gonna stop you right there."

"But you should know - "

"Cas. _Don't_."

He will scream if he has to hear Cas apologize about his, his relationship with his _brother_ , have him stammer and mumble through his condolences, listen to him say it _out loud_ , try to rationalize this unspeakable grotesque _thing_ that has grown inside him, _I shouldn't have, it was a mistake, and you are wrong as well_ \- or, worse, condone it, pretend he's all right with the sickness Dean's fostered and, now, encouraged, all this stupid pining and daydreaming. He is nauseated by himself, exhausted with his own obsessive, lonely remembrances, and to hear Cas say it - .

He can't. He _can't_.

For once in his millennium-long, tactless life, Cas is able to catch a clue and clam up when it's needed. Dean gives him a grim smile and a nod, and gets out of the damn kitchen before Cas can try and start some new terrible heartfelt discussion.

He ends up assembling a pitiful sandwich on the coffee table in the sitting room, and Sam laughs at him the whole time, because he's the biggest asshole that ever lived.

"You have a good talk with Cas?" Sam says from behind his book.

"Fuck off," Dean says through a mouthful of sandwich. No mustard, no relish, no bacon. It's tragic, is what it is.

"That bad, huh?" Sam says, amused.

"Friggin' therapy hour in there," Dean says, spraying crumbs into Sam's hair.

" _Ugh_ \- ew! Dean! What are you, six? Quit it!"

"No," says Dean, and does it again.

" _Kill_ you," Sam says, eyes alight, and tackles him off the sofa. The sandwich goes spinning underneath a nearby armchair like a floppy, tasteless frisbee.

" _Fucking_ \- " Dean says, and tries to kick him off. Sam's got his hands pinned and he's trying to wriggle around to flip them but he _can't quite_ -

"I'd prefer if you didn't do that in here," Crowley says. "Whatever you ingrates get up to behind closed doors is of no matter to me, but I don't want to _see_ it, for fuck's sake."

They spring apart. Sam bangs his shoulder on the coffee table in his hurry to get away, which Dean might find more amusing if he wasn't burning up with embarassment, fear that he's been caught out, fear that Crowley's seen right through him.

"Why do you have to - what do you _want_ ," he snarls, to cover up his awful, full-bodied shame.

Crowley lifts an eyebrow, like he's saying, _that didn't get past me, idiot_. "Just coming to check on my favorite dethroned god, see how he's doing. Didn't expect _this_ , but what would life be without its little twists and turns, hm?"

"That's not - it _isn't_ ," Sam says. "You're an _asshole_."

"All part of the charm," Crowley says. "If you'll excuse me..."

"Gladly," Dean says.

Crowely rolls his eyes dramatically and sweeps into the kitchen.

"Can't wait to be rid of him," Dean says. "Soon as this leviathan shit's over with, we are outta here."

"What?" Sam says, abruptly departing from whatever train of thought he'd chosen to jump on. "Uh. Yes. Absolutely."

He's still a little shaken from Crowley's interruption - his discovery? God, he hopes not - and he sinks down on the far end of the sofa, drawing out the space between him and his brother. Sam doesn't say anything about it, grabs his book back off the table and continues to read like nothing had happened at all.

It's not too long before Dean feels like he's about to burst out of his skin, all the tension and uncertainty and absence from the fight. He knows he can't win, not with a fucked-up angel and a weird sword as his only resources, but he's still anxious to get back on the field, get away from this damn house.

He's able to keep his mouth shut through at least two more chapters of Sam's book. He is proud of his restraint.

"This is fuckin' killing me," he says. "I can't just sit here anymore, shit."

Sam looks up over his book and gives him a look of utter disdain. "I think you'll be okay, but I'll ask Crowley to pick up a TV set, just in case."

"That's not - I don't mean that I'm _bored_. I mean, I _am_ bored, but that's not - that part isn't important, I - there are people _dying_ out there, Sam, and we're gonna just screw around? It ain't right, and I can't sit on my ass when there's leviathans to kill." 

"You can," Sam says, "and you will. We're gonna wait until Cas is ready. It's too dangerous."

"Oh, come _on_ , no it isn't. I've killed two of the damn things already. Piece of cake."

"Piece of - you nearly _died_ , remember? The second time we only made it out 'cuz of Cas. And even if you _do_ manage to kill one, it's not gonna make much of a difference anyway."

"What? Yeah it will! You _know_ it will! Maybe we can only save one or two people, but that's - it's _worth_ it."

"It's too dangerous," Sam repeats. "We're staying in here until Cas is ready. Got it? Hey, _got it_?"

"I got it," Dean grumbles. "'S just, we got the goddamn sword - we're the _only_ people who could do something - "

"I know, Dean, I _know_. It sucks. I hate it just as much as you do, okay? I want to go help, but - . It just isn't smart."

"When've I done _smart_ ," Dean says.

Sam laughs, shakes his head, and goes back to his book. Discussion over.

Only it isn't, for Dean. Maybe Sam's okay to stick his nose in his books and ignore everything that's going on, but Dean's had enough of all this idle hands bullshit. He's still got that nervous itching _fight fight fight_ buzzing under his skin and he has to do _something_ about it. It's just how he is. If Sammy can't respect that - well, he's the younger brother, anyway, so he hasn't got any authority in the first place. Dean's a grown-ass man and he doesn't need some kid babysitting him.

When it hits midnight, Dean bids Sam goodnight, goes up to his room, waits until the house is quiet, and then slips back down again. There are one or two sullen-looking demons skulking in the sitting room, and they eye him up and down as he passes but, to his relief, don't try to stop him. He sneaks outside and shuts the door behind him as softly as he can, letting it settle into the frame. Tonight it is moon-bright and silent, his baby gleaming starkly against the thick treeline.

The gravel driveway crunches under his boots as he walks over, no longer trying so hard to be quiet now that he's away from the house. He opens her door, ready to sit down - except there are two giant goddamn boots right where his ass should go, followed by a pair of long, scrunched-up legs, and then the rest of his stupid, sleeping brother, arms tucked close to his chest and brow furrowed.

"Dude, what the fuck," Dean says, without really meaning to, and Sam sits up almost instantly, knife in his hand, eyes brightening into awakeness. As soon as he sees Dean, his expression goes tragic and he lowers the knife down to his lap.

" _Dean_ ," he says, in his most matronly, disappointed-in-you voice.

"Were you - why are you _sleeping in my car_?"

"To stop you from going off and _dying_ , Dean," Sam huffs. "I can't - I hoped I was being overcautious, but here you are - ."

"Yeah, here I am. I can't just sit in that goddamned house anymore, Sam!" Dean says. "We're drowning in fucking useless witch books and demons and then there's Cas fucking sitting around like he doesn't give a shit - "

"Hey, he does," Sam says. "He really wants to help."

"I know," Dean says, deflating. "I know. I just - he's so - ." He gestures ineffectually, gives a frustrated grunt.

"Defeated?" Sam says.

"I guess, yeah. But he's still - . Ugh. I don't know. He's so _mopey_."

"God forbid he meditate on his mistakes."

"That's kinda the thing, though. Is he really regretful, or is he just trying to get us to forgive him? You think he gets what he's done?"

"Um. Yeah, I think so. He's pretty broken up about the whole leviathan thing - 'cept, that's not what you're talking about, is it?" His chin tips up, his eyes shine bright and attentive in the dark. "You mean what he's done to you, don't you."

"No - _no_ , not what he's done to _me_. He hasn't - Christ, you gonna start charging by the hour? I gotta ring up my healthcare provider?"

"I'm just concerned, man. I thought - you were _gone_ , and I had _no idea_. And now you're back and saying you're fine, you're fine, but you're - . And you aren't getting better, and I - I'm worried, Dean. I can't - I need you to be safe, okay?"

"Woah, hey, Sammy, man, I'm right here," Dean says, leaning his head and torso a little through the door.

"I know, it's just hard to - oh my God, stop doing that. I feel like I'm twelve. If we're gonna talk about this, could you _please_ come sit in the damn car? This is weird."

It is a phenomenally bad idea, but he gives in anyway, brave with unspent adrenaline, slides his body through the door and settles it onto the bench seat next to his brother. It is easier talking like this, Sam no more than a dark silhouette off in the corner of his eye, masked and expressionless. They could be strangers or ghosts or no one at all.

"You good?" Sam says quietly, his voice close and warm in the close cab of the car. The question is more than that, more than some routine check-in, and Dean understands this, doesn't know how to answer without spilling his sickness out all over the seats.

"I'm good," he starts, and, okay, that's pretty solid. "You gotta trust me on that. There's some stuff that - I mean, Cas had to fry my brain to keep me complacent, and sometimes it's. Strange. But I'm not like, hearing voices or anything, so I'm not _that_ fuckin' nuts."

"Haaa," Sam says, sort of a laugh but not really at all, too drawn out and flimsy. "That's - good."

"My head's working fine, I promise."

"Good," Sam says again, and then: "I missed you. While you were - ."

"On vacation?"

Sam snorts. "Yeah, okay."

The sun is not due to rise for another few hours, and the sky they can see beyond the treeline is littered with brilliant stars, distant little cardboard cutouts strewn across the horizon. It is almost surreal, certainly otherworldly.

"There wasn't a moon," he remembers, petting the leather seat.

"Uh. What?"

"In Cas' thing. No moon. I guess he forgot it."

"What the hell, Cas? How could you forget the moon?"

"I know, right? Fuckin' angels, man."

He can feel Sam smiling next to him, and it's good, whole and comfortable and unshakable in a way he himself has never been. This is - good.

"You were a professor," he adds, because he knows Sam will appreciate it in an offhand way.

"What? Where? Which school?"

"Whaddaya mean, _where_ , it was friggin' UCas, not, like, MIT. You think Cas is gonna recreate an entire college for me?"

"Well, I mean, he made a whole _world_. With people and everything."

"It was only a _town_. 'N most of the population was pod people, anyway."

Sam hums. "How was _my_ replicant?"

"Eh. Four outta ten. Wasn't nearly bitchy enough."

Sam punches him, but not very hard. Dean has the strangest urge to flick on the overhead light so he can see his brother's face, take in his kind eyes and amused smile and dumb floppy hair. He keeps his hands on the leather seat.

"Dean," Sam says, his voice gone serious again. "I know you don't like this kinda thing - "

"Ugh," Dean says.

" _But_ , if you're hurting - I'm not saying you are, I'm saying _if_ \- let's go talk to Cas, okay? Maybe you should talk to him anyway, let him know - ."

"You say 'let him know how you feel', and I'm kicking your ass outta the car," Dean warns. "There ain't nothing to talk about. This whole thing, it's - . It wasn't bad. It was - fuck, I dunno, nice sometimes."

Like when Sam's hands were on him. Like when Sam kissed him goodbye on the sidewalk outside their tiny little house.

"D'you ever wish you were back there?" Sam says, staring at the dashboard. Dean can make out a sliver of mouth, the edge of his brow, both carefully blank.

He's unsure, Dean thinks - he's doubting himself, his decision to hunt down Cas and retrieve his brother.

This is fucking stupid and, frankly, a little insulting that Sam'd ever think he'd rather have stayed. It's no contest at all. He'd rather be sitting next to his brother on opposite sides of the car in the latest hours of the morning, alive and contrary and insufferable as he is, than have himself a Sam-puppet to touch all he'd like, curl up to in a bed they own. He loves his brother and he _loves_ his brother but now, after everything, he'll have him any way he's willing. It's enough that they're together, and alive, and free.

"I'd rather die," he says easily, smiles a little, just to himself. It's - it's funny. It really is.

Sam lets out a huge gush of air, and Dean turns to look at him head-on, sees that he's watching him right back in a kinda weird, contemplative way, eyes raking over his face.

"Dude, what," he complains.

Sam jerks back. "Um!" he says. "Nothing, I just - it's nothing."

"Sure, man, whatever. Let _me_ spill my guts out, but when _you_ \- "

And then Sam leans in, rests his weight on his hands, and kisses him.

For a blissful, electric moment, there's the soft, chaste press of lip against lip, so careful and gentle it hardly feels real to him, like a half-digested memory of a dream, like a fragment of time spent unmade and lost in his own head, and, then all of him is wound tight in revulsion, _no_ , no, no, _God help me_ , no, this isn't - _no_ -

He shoves Sam away, head spinning in horrible, traitorous circles. "Don't - " he says. "What - "

"Shit," Sam says, reaching for him. "Dean, I didn't - fuck - "

But he's not listening, tumbling out from the car like he's forgotten how his own legs work, staggering across the lawn, no, no _no, no_ \- . Because Sam hasn't - Sam _doesn't_ , he _can't_ , not ever, not in real life, so this, right now, it's - he'd been right, he'd been fucking right back when he'd thought Cas had healed him, and he'd fooled himself trying to tuck his doubts away, didn't want it to be true, _couldn't_ let it be true. Only it is and now this whole time - none of it. None of it has been real. Sam doesn't want him and none of this is real.

He doesn't - what's he supposed to do? He's shivering, holding himself. Is it even really Cas? Had it _ever_ been Cas? Were there ever leviathan, and swords, and Crowley acting as an ally - God, he'd been so fucking stupid. So fucking stupid. He remembers the djinn, the way he'd escaped back then, and he wonders - maybe -

Sam's hand comes down on his shoulder, and he whirls around, skin crawling. "Don't fucking - don't _touch_ me."

Sam looks haunted, torn, his eyes glassy and wet, and Dean hates it, hates it, has to remind himself, that isn't Sam, it maybe isn't anyone, and he can't - he can't feel for it, can't sympathize, or else he might forget -

"I - Dean, I shouldn'tve, it wasn't - please listen - "

Dean laughs, bares his teeth. "The fuck could you have to say to me, huh?"

Sam's face crumples, his hands palm-up and halfway extended in front of him, like he wants to reach out and pull Dean to him. "I can fix this, I can. It was a mistake and I won't, not ever again - "

"Shut up," Dean says. "Stop. _Stop_. I know, okay?"

"You - you know - ? How long - "

"I suspected, but I didn't want to believe, 'cuz, Christ, how could I? And then, _this_."

Sam is crying. "Please. Please, just forget this. We can pretend it never happened, okay?"

"Yeah, sure. I'll just _forget_. I don't fucking think so. You heard me the last time, didn't you? _I'd rather die_."

Sam blinks. "The - last time?"

"Yeah, asshole, and the time before that, too. You think you could just have Sam kiss me and I'd go on thinking everything was hunky-dory? I got your number now, and I'm not just gonna sit around. I'm gettin' my ass _outta_ here."

"Out of where, Dean," Sam says. His face is still shiny and tear-streaked but he's stopped crying, his features once again staid and unreadable. It's decided to stop pretending, then, and that's - it's hard to take, but it's, it's good. It's easier this way.

"You wanna hear me say it? Is that it? You get off on that, huh? Jerkin' people around, keepin' 'em stuck in their own heads - ."

"Dean," Sam says. "You think - . You don't think this is real, do you."

"Gold star for you," Dean says. "I thought I got out, but hey, guess not!"

"Dean, no, you did - I promise you, you did. I swear to God - I swear on my fucking life, this is real, okay? This is _real_."

Sam is concerned and sincere and Dean can feel his resolve dissolving, his surety slipping away. "Don't do this to me," he gasps. "Don't do this."

Sam comes forward and grasps his shoulder, guides his chin upward with his other hand. "Dean. Dean, listen to me. Look at me, man, okay? This is real. You know it is."

"I don't, I don't know, I - "

"Yes - yes, you do, you have to, Dean, please. It's different. I don't know how, but it is, it's gotta be. Try to think, okay? What's different?"

"I can think. I can think, and it doesn't - go blank - "

"That's good. That's good, Dean, what else?"

"I - I can remember. I mean, the past, like when Cas - . And there isn't - the world's all here, we drove for such a long time."

"Okay, uh, that's - good? I mean, I don't understand, but, yeah, good. You see? It's real. I'm real."

"But - you kissed me," Dean says, sagging downward. Sam follows him. "You kissed me. Why would you - unless this is a - "

"Because I _want_ you, you idiot," Sam says. "And I'm sorry if you can't - if you don't want that to be true, but it _is_ , okay, and I - . Shit. I'm sorry, Dean. But it's me, really. I've always - yeah."

"Always," Dean says, and Sam grimaces.

"You're lucky you're freaking out, because I _really_ don't wanna talk about this. Yeah, always, all right? I looked up to you for forever and then I got older, and every time you left with a girl, it was like - I hated it. I hated it so much."

"You can cut the chick-flick shit," Dean manages. "I hear you."

"Yeah?" Sam says. "You believe me?"

They're kneeling now, face to face, Sam just barely holding him upright. He feels winded and just, so fucking scared. So scared. But Sam's there, and he loves him.

"I believe you," he says, and shuts his eyes. "'M sorry, Sammy. I didn't mean to - 'm sorry."

"I know," Sam says, pulling him close. "I know. It's okay, man. We're okay." 

"Yeah," Dean rasps, tucking his face into Sam's neck. He takes in a deep breath and inhales his familiar scent, cheap aftershave and parchment and sweet skin, God, everything he's loved and missed about his brother for so long,  _Sam, Sammy, Sam._

Sam's stiff and cautious, his hands hovering awkwardly at his brother's shoulders. "Dean," he says, stilted. "If you - I can't - ."

"We're okay," Dean repeats, his lips moving against Sam's neck, and he smiles when he feels his brother shiver all over. "S'okay."

"I - you sure? 'Cuz what I said, about you - "

Dean should be a good older brother, let Sam think he's on his own with this, let him maybe pine for a little and then, eventually, let it go. But it's the end of the goddamn world, maybe, and Sam fucking _wants_ him, so what the hell.

"When I was with Cas," Dean starts, and now that it's coming out of his mouth, God, it doesn't seem so simple anymore. How's he supposed to say,  _we were fucking,_ without making it cheap, and tawdry, and he's so fucking - he  _cannot_ do this - 

He gives a frustrated grunt and weaves his arms around his brother's shoulders, surges up and slams their mouths together with determined ferocity.

"Mmph!" Sam says, and flails. They break apart, Dean panting, Sam looking as if he's been hit in the gut with a steel pipe, his mouth lax and startled.

"Uh," Dean says, and coughs. "Yeah." 

"What?" Sam says. "What are you - ?"

"I, um. I wanted to, uh." He's _blushing._ This is the goddamned  _worst._

Sam takes in a sharp breath. "Oh my _God,_ when I kissed you earlier - you thought it was a fantasy, didn't you? And that's why you - oh my God, Dean - "

"Quit it - don't  _laugh,_ dickhead. Yeah, that's why, okay? Jesus." 

"You're an ass," Sam says. "Holy shit, I hate you. You let me think - you're such a fucking _ass._ "

He's holding Dean proper now, his arms snaked around his torso and clung tight in the back, and he's trying to make a face like he's insulted, except he's grinning too hard to make it convincing. Dean scowls at him, tilts up to catch his mouth again just to make him shut his fucking mouth, and _oh._ It's so much better than the first time, Sam gone soft and yielding and pliant, _responding_ to him, moving with him. There's still no tongue and it's as innocent as such a thing can be but it's easily the best kiss he's ever had, the most exciting, just by virtue of the situation. He's loathe to break it off but his goddamn knees are starting to hurt and it's actually a little nippy outside, so he pulls away and smiles when Sam tries to chase his lips.

"How 'bout we go in, huh?"

"Uh. Yeah," Sam says, still looking a little starstruck. Dean helps him up, and together they walk away from the Impala and back up to the house.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The real question is: why does crowley keep hot pockets in the non-freezer side of his fridge?!!!?? that is just irrisponsible


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow look at me updating during the actual daylight hours. like a real human being. amazing
> 
> WARNING: there is a very VERY vague dubcon-y passage in this part. it really isn't bad at all but, just in case!

 

Somehow they make it back into the house and up to the first floor. Dean feels like he’s walking on goddamn air, half-asleep and still coming down from his panic, everything tilting strange around him, the earth giving under his feet. Sam has to help him up the stairs and into his room, where he promptly strips off his jeans.

"Uh," says Sam.

"What, you want me to sleep in 'em? I'll put 'em back on, but I gotta warn you - they ain't clean."

"Um, no! No. 'Course not. You can - yeah."

Dean grunts, kicks his jeans in a direction. He'll find them and clean them up in the morning. Or not. Who knows. They're probably serviceable at least one more time, he figures.

Sam is standing awkward and gangly in the doorway, like he's a pubescent teen again and he's not yet sure how to handle his limbs. "This is weird," he says. "What should I - I mean, I don’t - "

"Just c'mere, bitch," Dean says, and tugs him by the arm into the tiny bed. They fall in an ungraceful heap. Sam is still blushing and stammering, and Dean'd probably raise more of an eyebrow over that if he wasn't about ready to pass out.

"I really don't know, um," Sam says, wriggling like an upturned beetle and upsetting the pillows. "Should I - "

"Shaddup and stop thinking," Dean grumbles, irate. He's realizing now he hadn't really thought this through, this whole Sam-in-his-bed thing. Before there was hardly room enough for one Winchester-sized person to fit, and now with two they have to lie practically on top of one another, arms and legs twisted into odd directions, Sam's giant bony elbows poking Dean's sides. It takes a little manipulating but Dean's able to get himself on his back and nest Sam sideways atop his arm, shaggy head rested tentatively on his shoulder. It would be more comfortable if the big dumb sasquatch wasn't tense all over, his legs rigid and awkward and skated up _just_ shy of Dean's own, as if he'd like to touch but isn't sure if it's allowed.

"Relax, man," Dean says, eyes already drooping shut. "Go t'sleep."

"Oh," Sam says. "I thought - okay. Yeah. Ha. I'm just gonna - yeah."

He kinda gets a little closer, a little looser at the joints, and he's not quite all the way there yet but Dean figures, hell, good enough. At least he's not wound spring-tight anymore. They can work on it. They've got time.

Sam's head is a warm sunspot on his chest and his pulse seems too huge to be real, too body-shaking intense, and it's strange and wonderful, the two of them lying there together - actually _together,_ for real, the quilt warm around both of them, the mattress easing and dipping to allow both their bodies, his brother's quiet breathing. The musty comfortable dark of the house settles in around them and cradles them and everything is so heavy, and. And.   

 

When he opens his eyes again all he can see is the very top of Sam's head, errant strands of wild sleep-mussed hair tickling his chin. For a second he panics – _where? what_ _–_ and then he remembers his impatient nighttime race to the car, the kiss they’d shared. Sam, holding him close. Sam, letting him in.

It’d feel more surreal if, maybe, he were comfortable, but instead he feels like he’s been buried under a pile of sweaty warm sandbags, his brother no longer neatly wedged into his side but plastered to him in full, his hipbones cutting into Dean's thighs, arms flung spread-eagle over his torso, presumably for maximum coverage. _Someone_ has kicked the blankets off during the night, but save one small concentrated patch of cooling damp on his chest - which he's fairly sure is drool - Dean's burning up all over like he's been stuck in a sauna overnight. It’s so dumb and real and _Sam_ that it’s able to neatly tug down the screaming, shuddering panic that’d been threatening to burst out of him. It’s the two of them, together. It’s – good.   

Sentiment aside, though, it’s still really fucking uncomfortable.     

"Off," he says, and blows hard at the bits of head he can reach.

Sam makes a noise like a question mark and rolls his cheek against Dean's chest, swiping his nose through the spot of drool.

“Ugh,” says Dean, shoving at Sam’s head with his single free hand. “You’re _gross._ Move.”

“’M not,” Sam says, blinking up at him, and, wow. That’s – yeah, that’s Sam resting right there on his chest. He looks really gross, unfocused eyes and gummy chin, stringy unwashed hair, and Dean can only ride it out as he’s tossed sideways by great swelling waves of affection and happiness, an overwhelming sense of safety, of home.

“God fucking _dammit,_ Sammy,” Dean says, and smiles, warm all over. He feels like he’s radiating peace from every pore like a small wild sun.

“Um,” Sam says, and then, petulantly, “’s cramped.”

“No thanks to _your_ huge ass,” Dean says.

He remembers his foot, gone numb probably hours ago, and begins to feel considerably less charitable. He gives Sam a shove.

“Scoot,” he says. “Not kidding. Off, or I start kicking.”

“Don’t got leverage anyway,” Sam snuffles, but rolls off all the same. He stands by the side of the bed in his rumpled shirt and sweatpants, grass stained from their adventures during the night before.

There’s dirt and bits of leaf in the bed, too, and Dean can’t bring himself to care. He’s slept in worse – _way_ worse – and it’s Crowley’s stupid tiny bed, anyway. He’s more than welcome to change the stupid tiny sheets if he so desires.   

Sam is watching him pull on a pair of jeans, button a flannel over his undershirt. He feels like he’s doing a reverse striptease.

“Dean,” Sam says. “About last night –“

“ _No,_ _”_ Dean says, doing up the last button on his shirt. “Whatever you’re gonna say, don’t. Far as I’m concerned, we’re good. Okay? Nothin’ to talk about.”

“And by _good_ , you mean…”

“I mean, like, good.”

“Great. Thanks. You are the least helpful person on the planet.”

“I mean, don’t freak out about it, okay? We’re… we’re still, you know.”

“I don’t, though, Dean,” Sam says, chewing his lip. “I don’t _know_ what we are.”

“I hate this conversation,” Dean says. “I hate it _so_ much. This is not – I am _not._ _”_

“Okay, how ‘bout this,” Sam says, scooting closer. “What _I_ said last night – I meant it. And if you don’t – I can’t just forget about this, Dean.”

“I’m not asking you to. I meant what I said too, okay? It still stands.”

“So – if I did _this_ –“

Sam leans in as if to lay a kiss against Dean’s lips, and Dean springs backward before he can do any damage.

Sam looks devastated. He crumples.

“No,” Dean says, “no, I just mean not now, okay? Brush your teeth first, and _then_ we’ll talk. And wash your face off, too, you’ve got drool all over it. Actually, just take a whole damn shower. Please.” 

“Later,” Sam says.

“Later.”

 

He’s not gonna sit in his bed and wait while his brother takes a shower, so he decides to head downstairs to find a little breakfast. Maybe he’ll make something nice, like, pancakes, maybe. Yeah, that sounds good. Sam’ll appreciate that.

Except no, he _isn_ _’_ _t_ doing that, because there are about a dozen demons crammed into the sitting room and as soon as they see him they all start hooting and whistling at once. A smattering of insincere, staggered applause ropes through the mob, and, at the very middle, Flora’s sitting like a queen on the back of a sofa, legs crossed primly, hair braided and held in place with a bat-shaped pin. They all look unbearably amused but Flora especially so, her pale features alight with anticipation.  

He is _so_ not ready to deal with this.

“Congratulations,” someone – some _thing_ _–_ yells.

He waves his middle finger in its general direction, tries to trudge by without instigating any major conflict. Fucking _Sam,_ working with fucking _demons,_ see what _that_ gets them –

“Don’t be sour, Dean-o,” Flora says. “We wanna celebrate with you.”

“Fuggoff,” Dean tells her. He’s got no idea how they found out and he doesn’t care, either. He’s got _no_ interest in holding a dialogue with them long enough to find out.

“That’s awful rude,” Flora says. “I hope we’re still invited to the wedding. Have you set a date? A place? How about Sweden? I think they let siblings marry there.”

Dean hunches his shoulders and hurries through the doorway to the kitchen.

“Since it’s illegal here, and all. You fucked your brother,” she yells at his retreating back.

The kitchen isn’t much of a refuge. He can still hear them whistling and yelling, but at least he doesn’t have to look at their stupid smug faces. He’s sure Crowley knows, too. The bastard probably encouraged them to set up a welcoming party.

Cas is, as always, waiting at the kitchen table, which is now cluttered with dried plant matter of every shape and size, several small vials of cloudy liquid, and what Dean hopes to God isn’t a water bottle filled with blood. There are teeth, too, and bones, tiny-beaked bird’s skulls, delicate ribcages only the width of his thumb. A plastic baggie of what looks like dried centipedes.

“Please tell me we’re gonna leave soon, Cas,” Dean says. “I can’t take much more of this.”

“We must wait until the full moon,” Cas says. “The ritual will not –“

“Yeah, yeah, won’t function, I got that. Ugh. I fucking _hate_ demons.” He slams the refrigerator door open, gets out butter, milk, eggs. Flora can go fuck herself. He’s gonna make some delicious fucking pancakes and he isn’t going to share _any._

“Crowley is not so bad,” Cas says. He’s staring down at the table, sorting a handful of molars into two separate piles.

“You did _not._ I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that. Christ, Cas. S’like you’re developing, um, whatsit. Stockholm syndrome. Man, there any mixing bowls around here?”

“Yes, Dean. I fear I’ve developed a fanatical loyalty to Crowley over the past two days. I fear I’ll die without him.”     

“Shit, Cas, was that a _joke?_ Damn. How come you’re so cheerful today?” He’s found a midsized plastic Tupperware jammed in with the smaller bowls, and he figures it’ll do.

“You have spoken with your brother,” Cas says, as if that explains everything.

“I talk with Sam all the time,” Dean says, cautious.

“You know that is not what I mean.”

“A man can dream, can’t he?” Dean says, cracking an egg into his Tupperware.

Cas barrels onward. “Your bond is important. And – I wouldn’t want to see it weakened due to my actions. I am glad that you have recognized your mutual interest.”

“Wait, hey,” Dean says. “When you, y’know, set me up with Sam in the mind thing, did you know? That he, um. Wanted the same thing? ‘Cuz, if so –“

Cas is saved from answering when, out of nowhere, the demons start up their racket again.

“The _hell,_ _”_ Dean says, slamming his mixing spoon down on the counter. Batter goes spattering up the wall. “Could they just shut up? For, like, a _second?_ _”_

“Ah, that must be Sam,” Cas says.

“On a scale of one to ten,” he hears Flora yell, “How good of a lay is Dean?”

“Fuck’s sake,” Dean mutters.

“I’d hope pretty good,” Flora yells, “since it’s gotta be worth committing incest, right? Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Sam falls into the kitchen on the tail of a whole lot of whooping and hollering, face bright red. “The demons know,” he says.

“I noticed. And hey, guess what, Cas knows too.”

“Cas – ?“

“You were not terribly discreet,” Cas says, and Sam starts to choke.

“S’all good, though, ‘cuz Cas is all for it. Aren’t you, Cas.”

“Your perseverance in hiding your feelings was only driving a wedge between the two of you. You must hold onto each other. It is crucial.”

“You’re _okay_ with this. Cas.”

“You seem surprised.”

“It’s not exactly, um. Sacrosanct.”

“I disagree. There are a great number of incestuous relationships in the Bible, after all. Nahor and Milcah, Lot and his daughters, Abraham and Sarah –“   

“For the love of _God,_ please stop saying the i-word.”

“Isaac and Rebekah, Esau and Mahalah, Amnon and his sister Tamar, Amram and Jochebed –“

“Okay, I get it. _Okay._ ”

“I don’t,” Sam says.

Dean glares at him.“Pancakes are done,” he announces. “Who wants pancakes?”

There’s no syrup – fucking _Crowley_ – but there’s plenty of whipped cream and butter, and strawberries for Sam. Dean can make a damn good pancake, if he might say so himself, and he’s more than happy to gorge himself. Sam joins in with gusto. When they can’t eat any more, he feeds the leftovers to Cas, because if he leaves them lying around they’ll get eaten by demons, which is _unacceptable._

“You know those baby locks they get for refrigerators? We should get one,” Dean says, dunking their dishes in the sink. “‘Cept maybe draw a devil’s trap on it, or something.”

“Dude. We’re only here for, like, two more nights.”

“So? It’d totally be worth it.”

“I’d prefer not to deal with the backlash.”

“Hm,” Dean says, and takes a peek around the doorframe.

“We’ve started a betting pool,” Flora says. “Is it you or your brother who took it up the –“

He withdraws.

“I cannot stay in this house _,_ _”_ Sam says, gesturing toward the sitting room. “Not while there’s – _that_.”  

"How 'bout we go for a walk?"

“ _Please._ _”_

There’s a latched window at the far right wall of the kitchen, and they tumble out of it into the lawn, giggling like children the whole time. He imagines this would be what their life would be like, maybe, if they hadn’t been raised as vagrant warriors; him and Sammy playing at delinquent action heroes, the thrill of sneaking out from underneath a watchful eye, of breaking their eight-o’-clock curfews. Getting older friends to buy them alcohol, instead of their Dad.

It is breezy out, overcast but still warm, air soft and mossy, not too damp. The house has a small, flat patch of withered brown grass at its back, which gives into tangled, rocky forest after only a few yards, close-planted trees grown fat and lush on rich, loamy earth. There is little undergrowth but the ground is rocky and uneven, difficult terrain, maybe, for someone who isn’t a Winchester. Sam and Dean have no problem skirting through the tree trunks, their progress silent and controlled out of habit rather than necessity.   

“Hey,” Sam says, when they’re a safe distance away from the house. “Uh. I brushed my teeth.”

“Neat. Want a sticker? A commemorative plaque?”

“ _No,_ douchebag,” Sam whines. “This morning, you said –“  

“Yeah, yeah, I remember,” Dean says.

“If you don’t want to, I mean, I –“

Dean grabs his shirtfront and heaves him into a kiss, close-mouthed and sweet, and when he pulls away Sam’s looking awestruck.

“I want to,” he says, and heads forward. There’s a beat where Sam stands frozen just behind him and then jerks into motion all at once, dashing forward to regain his place at his side.

Dean reaches out and, without looking, curls Sam's hand into his own. Sam trips over his feet a little bit.

"Easy there, Gigantor."

"You –“

“Me?”

“I thought you would, you know. Be weirder about this.”

“I could, if you wanted me to,” Dean offers.

“No! No, I like this,” Sam says. “I was just expecting, I dunno. Dean’s Big Gay Panic.”

“Sammy, I’ve been fuckin’ dudes since before you knew what your dick was for,” Dean says, wriggling his eyebrows.

Sam’s face goes surprised, and then pissed off, and then right back to surprised again. “O-oh. I didn’t - . Huh. I had no idea.”

“What, you wanted to be the one t’break me in? Aww. I didn’t know you cared.”

“Shut up,” Sam says, blushing. “It’s not a – shut up.”

“Sammy, please, show me what to do, I don’t know how,” Dean says, pitching his voice just a little higher. “I’ve never done this before, not with a guy – hey!”

He’s not entirely sure how he’s gotten there but his back’s up against a nearby tree and Sam’s towering over him, his arms barring him in at either side, a wild, predatory glint in his eye. He’s breathing heavy through his nose and Dean can only stare up at him, stunned, fingers clutching at sticky bark.    

“You want me to show you how?” Sam says. “How to fuck a guy? That what you want?”

“ _Sam_ , oh my God,” he manages, and a giggle bursts out of his throat.

Sam flinches, backs off. “Sorry, was that – weird? I just wanted to – I –“

“Shut up ‘n c’mere, asshole,” Dean says, tugs him back in. “Can’t stop there, right? Gotta show me how.”

“Um,” Sam says. “Um, um –“

“What do you like, huh?” Dean says, running his hands over the waist of Sam’s pants. “You gonna tell me how to handle your dick? I wanna know, Sammy, I wanna make you feel good, but I don’t know –”

“Take it out,” Sam growls, his hands once again at either side of Dean’s head. “Unzip me and take it out.”

It’s familiar and not, all at once; the same slight curve to the left, the same long, hot heft in his hand, the same crested pink head. It is disturbing that Cas took the time to replicate his brother’s dick exactly. That’s just – that’s weird. It’s a good dick, but still – weird.

He rubs his thumb at the slit in the top and Sam shivers all over.

“Fuck, fuck – Dean,” he says. “Yeah. That’s – good. Okay. Can you – could you get your hand wet? Just a little –”

Dean keeps one hand wrapped loose around his brother – not moving, not at all tight, just resting gently just below his tip – and lifts the other to his mouth, sucks one, two, three fingers into his mouth, gets them spit-sloppy and dripping. Sam’s hips jerk up impatiently and Dean lightens his grip further, reduces it down to a half-circle of index finger and thumb. Sam whines.

Dean pops the fingers out of his mouth, tries not to laugh at the dumbfounded expression on his brother’s face. “That good?” he says. He knows his lips are already cherry-red and plump ( _cocksucking lips_ _–_ _c_ _’_ _mere, boy, show me if you know how to use_ _‘_ _em_ _–_ _I_ _’_ _ll treat you real nice_ _–_ _)_ gleaming wet with his own saliva ( _better to be sloppy_ _–_ _they like it that way, pay better_ _–_ _)_ and Sam’s eyes are caught on them just the way he’d hoped – he knows how to show off, if nothing else, how to work his fucking cocksucking lips –

No. Stop that. Focus on Sam, who’s twitching and anxious above him, not at _all_ in control, even though he’s got Dean pinned with his back to a tree. Sam, who is stuttering so prettily, asking him to lick his palm, too, get everything good and soaked. Dean obliges – makes sure Sam gets a good eyeful of his pink, soft tongue – and says, “now?” with the most innocent expression he can manage.

“Y-yeah,” Sam says. “Please. Touch my – touch me – _oh_ _–_ “

Dean curls his wet hand around Sam, starts to move his fist in tentative little jerks.

“More,” Sam says.

“More?” 

“Longer. Like you would, um. Do yourself.”

Dean quickens his fist, sliding it from base to tip in a breakneck rhythm that’s hell on his wrist but so, so worth it to see Sam’s reactions. He’s started to cant his hips helplessly into Dean’s hand, fucking up on the downstroke, brow furrowed in concentration. The sounds he’s making are enough alone, little frustrated grunts and gasps, but then there’s also the added visual of his cock huge and dripping from the slit, their skin sliding hot together, and, yeah. Dean is hard.

He can’t help himself, has to give in and knead his hard-on through the front of his jeans, and Sam’s eyes follow his forearm down to where he’s gripping between his legs and he lets out a little breathless _oh._

“Dean,” he pants, nudging his hand in to fiddle with his zipper. “Let me – please, can I – ?”

“God, yes,” Dean says, and juts his hips forward, lets Sam push his pants around his thighs and, with muted reverence, slide the rough skin of his hand up and down Dean’s bare cock. There is bitter drag and pull but it still feels so, so good, that big warm hand on him, tugging and teasing. Dean hisses.

“Shit – was that –“ Sam says, and Dean’s about ready to kick him.

“Do _not_ stop,” he growls, and Sam takes the hint, slicks his palm with the wet leaking from his tip – better now, an easier glide – strokes him firm and steady, grip too gentle to force any real pain.

“Okay?” Sam chokes, and Dean rolls his eyes, speeds up, adds a little twist to his wrist. If the kid’s worried about his wellbeing, he’s obviously not doing his job well enough.

Their eyes meet, lock, caught. Sam looks – surprised, is what he looks like, and maybe a little afraid, but also totally, completely in awe of his brother, not just for the sounds and sensations he’s forcing out of him but also his presence alone, his willingness to participate. He gasps and bucks. 

“I’m coming – I’m gonna come, I’m –“

He surges forward and covers Dean’s mouth with his own, licking wildly in, and Dean’s able to pump him once, twice more before his wrist is spattered with warm, thick, wet, Sam’s come between his fingers and dripping down his arm. Sam groans and shudders into Dean’s mouth and Dean doesn’t let up, keeps his hand going – slower now, more considerate – until Sam’s limp all over, leaning into him like a crutch. He’s still got his hand firm on Dean’s cock, and he eases the pump of his fist with his own come until Dean’s gasping and fucking into his hand, gut coiling tighter and tighter, pressure building. Sam’s other hand slides around, pets his ass, and it’s such an easy, innocent gesture that it’s all of a sudden too much and Dean’s coming, and _coming,_ orgasm tearing through him brutal and jarring and, God, oh my God, white-hot pleasure ripping out of his body, too much, too much.

His knees give out and Sam goes down with him, both falling loose-limbed onto the roots of the tree. “Oof,” he says, and starts snickering. He just jerked his brother off up against a tree.

“You okay? Was that – you good?”

“Yeah, man. You?”

“Yeah,” Sam breathes, wriggling over to him. It’s not really comfortable – he’s sticky, and underneath him there’s a root pressing against things it shouldn’t, and his clothes are _wrecked_ – but he’s happy to sit here, for a while, with his brother. It’s the afterglow, probably. Endorphins, or whatever. Sam nudges him with his shoulder and Dean leans against him in full.

“Hey, Sam,” he says. “In Sweden, is it legal for siblings to get married?”

Sam flails so hard he bonks his head against the trunk of the tree. “What? _No!_ Why would you - ?”

“Just heard it somewhere, I dunno,” Dean says. He tilts his chin up, watches the quiet shiver-slide of the topmost leaves, the light leaking through and changing with the wind. Through the branches he can see patches of blue, swathes of cloud, and it’s so quiet and idyllic he’s almost able to forget the world outside their odd little compound.

Almost.

    

They go back out to the woods the next day, too, because Flora and her entourage are still haunting the house and being generally irritating. Dean packs chips and sandwiches (“no, it doesn’t count as a _picnic_ , Sam, because there’s no _basket_ , okay”), and they find a flat spot and eat and make out until they’re both panting.  

Their excursions ease the weight of inaction, quiet the nervous thoughts he’s got spinning behind his eyes, his constant _not enough_ and _too late._ He is guilty over it – he is guilty over many things – and he thinks, maybe, he is robbing himself of something crucial, central to their success, that he won’t be able to work when he has to, that he’s getting complacent and weak –

He likes it. He doesn’t like that he likes it.

They sleep together, again, Sam latched onto him like a clingy barnacle, sweating and drooling through the entire night, and in the early morning Castiel walks in on them in bed together. They’re just sleeping, but it feels wrong, too revealing, and Dean tries to shrink underneath the blankets.   

“Today,” is all Cas says. He walks out.

“What?” Dean says, clouded with sleep. “What’s he mean, today?”

“The full moon,” Sam supplies, sliding off the bed. “Today’s the day we open Purgatory.”

“Holy shit,” Dean says. “Like, right now?”

“As soon as Cas is ready,” Sam says. “Which I think he is. I _hope_ he is.”

“Hell yeah, finally,” Dean says. “I get to get outta this fucking house.”

Sam studies him carefully, and shrugs. “If you say so,” he says.

Dean chooses not to contest him.

 

They go down together after a quick shower. Flora is gone, thank all that’s holy, but in her place is Crowley, and that’s potentially even worse. Dean takes a deep breath before he reaches the bottom of the steps, prepares himself for more of the same.

“Hello, boys,” Crowley says, and smirks.

“You got something to say?” Dean says. (“Dean!” Sam says, scandalized, like being rude to a demon’s some kind of unforgivable breach of etiquette.)

“I suppose I do, don’t I,” Crowley says. “Knew you had it in you, Sam. Took long enough. Come on, we’ve got an angel to boss around.”

Dean watches Crowley slink over to the sofa and drape himself down next to where Cas is already sitting. He is aware his mouth is a little ajar but he’s too disgusted to do anything about it.

“In my defense –“ Sam begins.

“No,” Dean says. He takes the seat opposite from Crowley and tries to burn holes through his torso with the force of his glare alone.  

Sam comes and takes his place next to him, and Dean bumps their arms together – _forgiven, but_ not _forgotten, little brother._

A couple miscellaneous demons are eavesdropping at the kitchen doorway.

“Where’s Flora?” Sam asks. “Thought she’d eat this kind of thing up.”

“Not here, don’t care,” Dean says.

“Hell,” Crowley says. “On… important business. Cas, do continue.”     

“The ritual does not need to take place at night,” Cas is says, “so we may leave at any time.”

“That’s handy,” Crowley mutters. 

 “We’re all set to go, then?” Sam says.

“Yes. We must, however, choose a location in which to perform the ritual.”

“’S gotta be somewhere with some open space,” Sam muses. “Not near any residential stuff.”

“ _Strip club,_ _”_ Dean says. “Strip club? _Strip._ Club.”  

“Ugh,” Crowley says.

“It _would_ provide a great deal of space. We would have a stage –”

“Cas. Don’t encourage him.We are _not_ using a strip club,” Sam says.

“Nah, man, it’d be great! The _stage,_ like Cas said! It’d be all dramatic ‘n shit. There’s the one _right_ near Hartford –“

“Dude, that’s, like, two hours away from here,” Sam says. “Three, even, if we aren’t speeding the whole way. Which we _aren_ _’_ _t._ ”

“I could transport everyone,” Cas says. “It would be tiring, but it is well within my abilities. Distance is of no matter.”

“Hey, no frickin’ way. We’re taking the Impala or nothing at all, got it?”

“I am _not_ traveling in that death trap ever again,” Crowley says.

“Good. Fuck you. Zap your way over, I don’t give a shit. Sam and me, though, we gotta take my baby.”

“Dean –“

“C’mon, Sammy, it’s, like, tradition.”

“Ghhh,” Sam says.

And that is how they all end up packed into the Impala on their way to a strip club, Cas and Crowley slouched in the back, Dean pushing eighty-five behind the steering wheel.

 

He feels like he’s back in his element, finally, ready to eat up some pavement, get that damn demon house far behind them and kick some shit _right_ in the ass. He’s spent the majority of his goddamned life in this car – sleeping, hunting, bitching at Sam over directions, defusing fights – that it’s as much a piece of him as Sam is, as much a comfort as his brother’s hands in his hair, the weight of his M1911 in his hand, a sturdy knife. She’s his goddamned trusty steed and riding into battle without her’s damn near pointless.  

Having Sammy stowed neatly at his right is another soothing bonus, even if the giant nerd’s _reading_ on his way over. It’s not like there’s anything else to look up before they go, since they’ve got it all plotted out: Cas has to carry out the ritual, Crowley has to hold the gate open, Sam has to play the panpipe. There. Done. And Dean – Dean’s there for moral support, or something. Cas gave him the leviathan-slaying sword to hang on to, probably because he feels bad for him. _No,_ he isn’t bitter.

They drive. He’s awake, this time, and not bleeding out on the back seat, and he takes the scenery in grim-faced, struck silent at the pitted, ransacked faces of supermarkets and gas stations, the boarded-up abandoned homes with their rusted, weed-tangled cars. His Dad would be in goddamn survivalist heaven right now.

The city itself is just as quiet when they fly through, and Dean hopes the little community holed up inside has managed to weather the storm. Is the woman who’d warned them about the leviathan down the road still alive?    

They pull into the parking lot. It’s littered with dead cars, some on their sides, some crashed into the guardrails. They’re mostly shitty cars, anyway. So whatever.

Up close the building’s smaller than it had looked when they’d been on the main road – smaller, certainly, than the sex shop opposite. Maybe when this is all said and done, he’ll raid it for some goodies. Hell yeah. Get some shit for Sammy.

“Dean,” Sam says pointedly, totally one-hundred percent aware of the direction Dean’s thoughts are going. He jerks his attention away from the blacked-out windows, shoots Sam a salacious grin. Sam rolls his eyes and bitchfaces.

“Well, come _on,_ _”_ Crowley says, and they’re herded over to the front doors. They’re hideous winged glass-and-steel monstrosities, ratty red-velvet curtains stapled on the inside so that passersby can’t see in.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Sam says. “A _strip club._ There’s a seafood place, like, right over there. Can’t we just –“

“Nope!” Dean says, taking out his lockpick set. “Too late. The oracle has spoken.”

“Oh, don’t bother with _that._ Move _,_ _”_ Crowley grumbles. He flips his hand vaguely at the door and, with no fuss at all, it springs open.

“Knew you were good for something,” Dean tells him, and strides inside, pushing past more worn red curtain until he’s at the club’s heart.

There is, as promised, a waist-high stage. It begins at the far wall and juts out into the center of the room, lined all around with chairs and small private booths. Three poles are spaced on it: one at the head of the stage – the largest part – and two down the smaller runway section. He hopes they won’t get too much in the way of their ritual. He also wants to play with them really, _really_ bad.

And then he spots the DJ booth tucked into the very back corner. 

It’s got the usual paraphernalia, a line of levers to regulate the sound, a tower stuck with knobs and gages, laptop and headphones – and slumped over the middle of it all is an indistinct, ominous dark lump.

“ _Cas,_ _”_ Dean hisses. “Cas _Cas Cas_ _–_ _“_

“What,” Cas says, way too loud.

“ _Shh,_ _”_ Dean says, and points. “No, wait – _get back here_ _–_ “

Cas doesn’t even flinch, just gets right up close to the thing and squints at it like a goddamned idiot. It doesn’t move but Dean unsheathes his sword, just in case.

“Corpse,” Cas calls.

“What?” Dean says. Sam echoes him from just behind his shoulder.

“Human corpse. Male,” Cas says. He leans in and sniffs it. “Cocaine addiction. Extreme damage to the nasal passages. Benign tumor in his left frontal –“ 

“Okay, _okay,_ House, that’s enough. Just needed to know it isn’t about to eat me.”

“It isn’t.”

That’s good enough for him. He puts his sword away, uses a nearby chair to climb up on stage. He’s so close – so _close_ _–_   

“ _Do not touch those stripper poles,_ _”_ Sam says.

“But –“

“ _No._ _”_

“Quit lollygagging, children,” Crowley snaps. “The sooner we get this done the better.” 

They all crowd up onto the back of the stage (except Crowley, who wanders off to the bar), and start to set up the herbs and liquids, chalk out the circles with Cas’ help. The fine sheen of glitter coated over everything makes it a little difficult but they manage, and soon they’ve got a working Cas-ready spread.

"You ready for the grand reopening?" Sam says.

"Hell yeah,” Dean says. “Let’s fucking do this.”

He falls back, near to Sam, and watches Cas crouch over his witchy kitchen, mixing and chanting. The brief flashes of light in his bronze bowl deepen and illuminate the tired crags of his face, and Dean’s sure, suddenly that this is the last time he’s going to be seeing his friend, and he will remember him like this, bent and exhausted and desperate. He doesn’t want this to be his memory of Cas – but it _won_ _’_ _t_ be, because this is hardly the most difficult thing they’ve ever done. He’ll have time to tell him – what? That it’s okay? It _isn_ _’_ _t_ okay, it won’t ever be okay, not when the leviathan are running free, not when Hartford’s still into self-imposed quarantine. It isn’t okay, but Cas shouldn’t be so – he shouldn’t.

It takes _forever._ Dean’s about ready to wander off and join Crowley at the bar, maybe crack into their selection of whiskey, when finally, _finally,_ Cas shouts something harsh and grinding, and a green fissure snakes down the length of the wall.

“Crowley!” Cas barks, and Crowley takes a step back, raises his arm. Slowly, bit by bit, the crack is pried open, glinting and sparking the wider it goes, until it’s a good four feet across and shimmering like a firework display. Through it, rippling as if at the bottom of a shallow puddle, he can just make out sepia branches and rock and still, cool ground. Nothing moves.    

“It worked,” Sam breathes.

“Sam, the pipe,” Cas says, and Sam digs it out of its pouch, lifts it to his lips.

To Dean it sounds like every other panpipe he’s ever heard – kinda silly and carnival-y, but hell, who’s he to judge – but soon enough thick, tarrish liquid begins to snake in through the door and up the back steps to the stage to gather around Sam’s boots, spiraling counter-clockwise just like it had the first time they’d attempted this. The stream grows and thickens until it’s as long across as Dean’s forearm and deep besides, and the flow through the doorway slows to a trickle, stops.

It doesn’t seem like there’s enough. When Dean thinks back on the leviathan they’d faced earlier the amount at Sam’s feet could make, _maybe,_ a little less thanhalf of the smaller one.

“We should wait,” he says. “That _can’t_ be all of them.”

“No,” Cas says. “It is. I - . I know. I remember. Sam, you can begin to direct them out.”

This doesn’t make any goddamn sense but Cas is in charge here, so, whatever, he’ll call the shots. If he says it’s time to get the things through the portal, it’s time to get the things through the portal.

Except Sam’s standing there and playing and playing and the leviathan keep on circling around him in an endless loop without any indication that they’re about to go anywhere else.

Dean is starting to get nervous.

“They aren’t going in,” he says. “Why aren’t they – “

“They’re following Sam,” Cas says slowly, and Dean’s stomach drops to somewhere around his ankles. “They go where he goes.”

“No,” Dean says, diving for his brother over the sludge. “Sam – _no.”_

Sam steadies him with a free hand and pulls him close against his side, one-armed. He looks sorrowful and determined and, goddammit, he _can’t,_ this can’t fucking be the way it ends. They’ve had all of two days together and it isn’t _enough,_ it won’t ever be enough, and now his brother’s ready to throw himself into Purgatory like some goddamned martyr when it feels like they’ve just _finally_ found each other.

“For fuckssake, what’s the holdup,” Crowley yells. He’s trying to keep on a brave face and pretend he isn’t at all strained, but his shoulders are shaking and there are beads of sweat rolling down from his rumpled hairline to drip from his nose, his ruddy cheeks. He’s gone a little pale, too, as if he might throw up.    

Sam makes as if to drive his brother away from him, but Dean clings on determinedly.

“If you go, I do too,” he says, and Sam snarls best he can, wrenches Dean’s arm in a way that’s meant to hurt. Dean winces and holds on, like he always has.

“No,” Cas says. A resolute stoniness has come over his features, his eyes gone steely and closed-off. For the first time since he’s woken up from his soul-induced coma he looks like a proper angel, fierce and protective. He looks like Cas.

“You too, huh?” Dean says. “Gonna tell me I’ve got a responsibility to stay here?”   

“Come on, come _on,”_ Crowley shouts. “I can’t hold this _forever,_ come _on!”_

Cas shakes his head impatiently. “Of course not, Dean. Sam, pass the pipe to me, and I will go in your stead.”

They share an impenetrable glance, Sam’s face flickering through a rondo of expressions, grief and anger and disgust and others that Dean, for all his experience reading Sam, cannot pick up. He holds his breath, bites his tongue, and Sam nods. Once.  

Dean’s chest bursts with guilty joy. He would like to celebrate but instead only clutches at his brother harder, and his brother reciprocates, winds his hand through the material of Dean’s outer shirt as if to say, _I’m not letting go._

“Crowley, get ready,” Cas yells, drawing near to Sam, his hand out. Dean draws his sword and takes on a defensive stance.

Crowley makes a noise like a startled bird. “Ready for – ?”

Sam stops playing.

There is no moment of silence, no brief respite between one breath and another. As soon as Sam’s lips pull away from the instrument all at once the leviathan squeal in their grating, metal-on-metal voices, rise up around them fluidly into a wall of roiling, hideous howling animal shapes, clawed hands and razor teeth and rolling eyes all around them, striking, screeching. Dean is taken off-guard by the sudden ferocity of the attack and swings his sword a second too late, feels pain lance through his side, his thighs, his back. He strikes at what he can but it’s just not enough and he staggers under the onslaught of tearing, writhing limbs, the teeth at his shoulder, the thing that’s speared into and then _through_ his soft lower abdomen. Across the room Crowley hollers something enraged and probably insulting.

Next to him Sam yells in anguish and Dean doesn’t spare a moment to throw himself onto his brother, tackle them both down onto the ground – the pipe’s traded hands, he thinks, he _hopes,_ please Castiel please have the fucking pipe – there’s unimaginable ripping pain everywhere, he thinks he is being flayed alive – he clings to his brother, Cas, _please_ – there are crushing vines around his knees and wrists and they are pulling in either direction and it is too much, too far -

And then, just as quickly as they’d struck, the leviathan withdraw, shivering, unlatch their jaws and fangs and slither away. He can’t hear anything – nothing at all, and isn’t that strange, just the weak pulse of his heart, his stuttering lungs. He thinks he can feel Sammy breathing steadily underneath him but mostly what he feels is raw, freezing, bone-deep hurt, the fragmented unbearable agony in his knees, his ribs, the dull pulse at his shoulder that indicates a dislocation. 

Out one blurry, red-hazed eye, he can see a pair of sensible leather shoes limp past, bubbling trail of black following like a well-trained pet. Those shoes step up into the air, their entourage keeping pace right behind, and there’s an electric shiver in the air and they’re both gone.        

Sammy says something irate and scoots out from underneath him, and the movement jostles his bent limbs, grinds his open back into the grimy stage, and he chokes around a whimper. There is a dim, reddish haze closing in on his remaining vision and he leans into it, lets it carry him. It hurts less, there. He thinks he would like for it to swallow him up. He is tired. 

Large hands close around his face and somewhere Sammy is saying _no, no, please,_ and Dean smiles, tries to tell him it’s okay. They did it. The leviathans have been shut away and everyone’s safe so he would really like to rest now, if you don’t mind. Tears fall on his face that aren’t his, and he wants to raise a hand to wipe them away but his body isn’t quite obeying his brain anymore. All around him is a gentle red mist and the pain is very far away now, muffled, like he’s just scraped his knee. Like he’s ten years old and he’s scraped his knee riding a bike he’d found out at the curb, and baby Sammy’s kissing his hurt gently, pasting a band-aid over it with careful delicacy. _All better,_ Sammy says, and glares up at him through his shaggy bangs. _Be more careful next time._

I will, Sammy, promise. I will. Next time.  

And then there is nothing.


	8. Chapter 8

Dean stands at the lip of the stage, and watches. He is here, and his body is – there, in Sam’s shaking arms, hardly a yard away but untouchable, separate and inconsolable to his shade.

He knows what this is. He has been here before.

Sam is giving a decent attempt at bandaging up his body’s wounds – always the field medic, his Sammy, makes him proud – but there’s too much, and too fast, and Sam’s just one guy with makeshift bandages and rudimentary emergency training. The body needs intubating and saline and clamps and Sam, please, stop. Sam. It’s over. It’s over. You can’t.

Dean’s blood is overflowing, running off the side of the stage in thin, dribbling rivulets like a macabre, ill-maintained fountain. Sam is kneeling in it, _covered_ in it, his face and hands and jeans, and he _still_ won’t let go. He exhales into the body’s mouth to try and keep it breathing even though he knows fair well he’s inflating lungs that are riddled with punctures, torn ragged by errant bone.

“Sammy,” Dean says.

“You are dying, Dean Winchester,” something says next to him in a sonorous, serious voice, and he jumps. Next to him there’s a balding middle-aged guy in douchey aviators and a track suit he _definitely_ does not remember being there before.    

“You my reaper?” Dean says, edging away. “Tessa busy or something?”

Sam is clutching the body to his chest, now, weeping openly, his teeth bared in an awful pained rictus. It’s missing an eye, Dean notices, one side of the face scored down to the bone, the socket a wet pulpy swamp.

“I am not a reaper,” his visitor says. “My name is Nathanael.”

“Nate,” Dean says. “I remember you. You’re one of the guys after Cas, aren’t you.”

“I was. It seems like you’ve taken care of that particular problem for us.”

In front of him Crowley climbs onto the stage, puts a comforting hand on Sam’s shoulder. Sam doesn’t acknowledge it at all.

“I sure as fuck didn’t do it for you,” Dean says. “Cas wasn’t supposed to – this wasn’t supposed to _happen.”_

“But it did. And it is just. Castiel murdered hundreds of my siblings, and committed blasphemy of the highest order.”

“I don’t _care,”_ Dean shouts, and realizes, belatedly, that yeah, he doesn’t. “He was _confused._ He thought he was doing good, and maybe he had to get knocked around some to get that he _wasn’t,_ but as soon as he did he wanted to fix it. He _died_ for us. He died getting rid of the leviathan and I never – I never got to – .”

“He is not dead. He has succumbed to a fate worse than death.”

“Oh, well, that’s fucking awesome. Thanks for letting me know, bud. You done gloating yet, or are you gonna let me die in peace?”

Nathanael regards him with cold, unblinking eyes. “I am here to reward you for your service. Nothing else.”

“Neat. Don’t want it,” Dean says.

“Then you would like to die. You would like to leave your brother.”

Dean startles. “Woah, hey, now! I didn’t say _that.”_

“Make up your mind, Dean Winchester. Would you let us settle our debt? Or shall I leave, and allow you to pass through the veil?”

It should have been an easy decision. But Cas – Cas went willingly into Purgatory for them. Cas gave up everything, and this creature at his shoulder wanted to reward _him_ for it. As if in failing Cas, he’d done something great. 

He does not deserve this.

Sam has his face pressed to the body’s chest, his arms wrapped around its middle. His hair is matted and sticky with drying gore. Dean wants so badly to run to him, knock Crowley out of the way, gather him up in his arms. Tell him it’s okay. Make him believe it.

“Heal him, too,” Dean says. “And I’ll take it.”

“He is not grievously injured,” Nathanael says, regarding him with intense disdain.

“Yeah, well, he’s a _little_ injured, and that won’t fly. I ain’t takin’ anything less, got it?”

“You are not in a position to bargain,” Nathanael says, and then sighs. “I will heal you both. As a fulfillment of my debt to you.”

“Just – “

And then he is on his back on the floor, Sam’s arms huge and crushing around him, his gross clumpy hair in his face. He feels like he’s being smothered, and wouldn’t _that_ be just fucking typical. Resurrected by an angel, only to be hugged to death by his own brother.

“Dude,” he manages. “Gonna squish me. Geddoff.” 

Sam freezes, which is the opposite of what he wants.

“’M serious,” he grunts. “Can’t breathe. _Move.”_

Sam pulls back, _finally,_ and Dean takes a deep, rattling breath, coughs thickly. He is sore all over, weak and tired, but _alive._ He’s alive.

“Dean?” Sam whispers, his eyes huge and horrified, his mouth still twisted with grief.

“Heya, Sammy,” Dean says.

“Dean,” Sam says, face crumpling. “You were – .”

He tugs him in close again – more gentle, now, but still fierce, protective, vibrating with hurt – and Dean goes with it, sitting up so that he can get his arms around his brother, too, clutch onto his shoulders as if they were the only things keeping him conscious.

“You were dead, you weren’t breathing,” Sam is saying into his neck. “I couldn’t get your _pulse –_ Dean, I was so _scared –_ “

“’M okay, man,” Dean says, rubbing Sam’s back in little circles. “I’m here. We’re okay.”

“I can’t, _”_ Sam says, raising his head. There are fresh tear tracks down his face. “Don’t ever – I can’t do this again, if you – ”

“Me neither, Sam, I – I promise, I’m not gonna die. You’re stuck with me for good.”

Sam chokes out a whimpered laugh, and stops, stares. He brings a hand up and runs a thumb over Dean’s cheek in wonder. “You have – your eye,” he says.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Glad that’s fixed, huh? Else I’d have some seriously fucked-up depth perception.”

“Dean. What happened,” Sam says, going white. “Was there – you didn’t make a deal, did you? Don’t tell me you – “

“Dude, no.”

“Then what? Because we don’t just – this doesn’t – “

“It was Nate, okay? The _angel,”_ Dean clarifies, when Sam just looks confused. “I guess he followed us here, or something. He wanted to give us a goodbye present.”

“Wait, you mean – Nathanael? But why would he - ?”

“Beats me,” Dean says. “Why do angels do anything, huh? But let’s just – let’s forget it, okay? You know, gift horse, mouth, et cetera.”

“O…kay,” Sam says. “I guess.” But he still looks grim, and worried, and Dean just wants him to move on. Wants them both to move on.

“We’re alive, Sammy,” he says. “We’re alive, and we’re okay. That’s nothing to spit at.”

“Cas,” Sam says.

“Yeah. Cas. But – you know what? Nate told me he isn’t dead. He’s just – trapped.”

“In Purgatory.”

“Yeah, so? _You_ were in Hell. Fuck, _I_ was in Hell.”

“Gosh, me too,” Crowley says. “Guess that makes us bosom buddies, hm?”  

“What the fuck,” Dean says. “Go away.”

“I plan to. But first – Sam. Our partnership has met its end, has it not?”

“Fucking finally,” Dean says.

“I guess so,” Sam says, ignoring him. “Thanks. Really. You were – we couldn’tve done it without you.”

“I went above and beyond, yes, and with no small cost to myself.”

“You’re _fine,”_ Dean says. “I almost _died.”_

Sam shivers and hugs him closer.

“Imagine my disappointment when you didn’t,” Crowley says. “It was crushing, really. I don’t know why Sam’s so fond of you.”

“Is there a _point_ to all this?” Dean bites out.

“I wanted to make sure Sam understood the terms of our contract have been met. Do you, Sam?”

“Yeah, I do. Chill, Dean. We just shook hands. It wasn’t an official deal, or anything like that.”

“Shame, too, but it is what it is. It worked out, in the end.”

“I guess it did,” Sam says.

Crowley smiles at him. For a moment he looks kind, and a little regretful, and very human, and then his mask of dry nonchalance snaps back into place and he’s Crowley King of Hell again.

“The house is yours, by the way,” he says. “ _What?_ Don’t look at me like that. I’ve got plenty of others. I don’t even like that one much. It’s too small.”

“It’s got, like, five bedrooms!”

“Like I said. Too small.” He straightens his waistcoat and flashes them a smarmy, insincere grin. “Ta, boys. I do hope I never see your moronic faces again.”

And then it is just Sam, and Dean, and the slow _drip-drip-drip_ of blood onto the floor. Dean stares at the spot where Crowley’d been, and then back at his brother.

“A _house?”_ Dean says. “What the _fuck?”_

“I’m… not entirely sure,” Sam says.

“It’s gotta be a trap. There’s no way we’re going back there. No _way.”_  

“Look, man, trap or not, all my clothes are in that house, and I really, really want to get a new pair of pants. These ones are toast.”

Dean worms around to look, and, yeah. They’re saturated in blood all the way up to his mid-thigh. It’s a little impressive, actually. They’ve had more coverage, but with, like, monster goo, not their own blood.  

“Damn,” Dean says. “That’s gonna be one helluva dry cleaning bill.”  

“We can _not_ take these to the dry cleaners. We _will_ get arrested.”

Sam’s worn down and grumpy, encrusted in blood and God knows what else, and he is the stupidest, most goddamn beautiful thing Dean’s ever seen in his life. Probably ever _will_ see. His menopausal idiot baby brother. Fuck.

Dean kisses him, because he can. It is only a quick brush of lips and chin but when he pulls back he’s beaming, happy to be alive, happy to be there. Happy to have Sam.

“Ugh,” Sam says, making a face like he’s bit into a lemon. “Now I’ve got dirt in my mouth, jerk.”

Dean punches him. And then kisses him again.

 

The drive home takes way too long, mostly because Dean’s pants are starting to crust to his legs. The whole inside of the car smells like blood and sweat and sulfur and when they reach the house Dean’s actually glad to get out and breathe some fresh air. Against his better judgment he leaves her windows open, and then follows Sam into the house.

It appears to be empty. No one jumps out to kill them, no alarms go off.

“First shower!” Sam yells, thundering up the stairs, and Dean doesn’t even try to fight it, wanders into the empty kitchen and sits down at the spot where Cas ought to be.

_A fate worse than death,_ Nate had said, and Cas – he didn’t deserve that, not the Cas they knew, blunt, clueless, ancient Cas, older than the stars and lost as a child. He was supposed to come back from that fight. They all were. And Dean’d let that goddamned angel heal him up –

But he doesn’t regret it. He can’t regret it, not when Sam’s walking through the doorway scrubbed fresh and smiling, hair wet against his shoulders. He’s wearing a pair of sweatpants Dean thinks might be his, because they end a good three inches above his ankle, and hot holy goddamn but he isn’t wearing a shirt. Dean’s mesmerized by the shift of his pectorals as he comes over and only realizes, belatedly, that Sam had said something.

“Uh,” he says. “Yes?”

“Dude,” Sam says, and cuffs him upside the head. “You weren’t listening at all, were you?”

“Nope,” Dean says cheerfully. “Not even a little.”

Sam snorts. “I was _saying,_ I left you some hot water, because I’m the best brother ever.”

“Oh yeah?” Dean says. He’s eye level with Sam’s belly button and it’s giving him Ideas, such as: see how much of Sam’s cock he can fit into his mouth. Technically he already _knows,_ but he wouldn’t turn down a refresher course.

“Go shower,” Sam says. “Seriously. You reek. And your clothes’re all fucked up.”

“’S really too bad. I liked this shirt,” Dean says, plucking at it. It’s got huge, drooping, blood-spattered tears collar to seamline, big enough he could probably fit his whole head through. Even _Sam’s_ giant head could squeeze past some of them. The shirt is beyond hope.

Sam’s mouth goes somber as he watches. “You gotta be more careful, Dean,” he says.

“Hey, s’not like I’m _trying_ to get hurt.”

“You jumped right on top of me, Dean,” Sam says. “You took most of it, and I – “

“And you lived,” Dean says, standing. “We’d both be dead if I hadn’t. You know that.”

“But it was – _you_ were the one who almost died, and I – I don’t want to be here without you, Dean. I don’t.”

“Hey, okay, don’t think like that. I’ll be more careful, I swear. But I ain’t gonna quit doing what we do. And I ain’t gonna stop protecting you.”

Sam smiles. “Yeah, I figured. I’d hug you, but, man. You _really_ need to shower.”

“Don’t want your dumb hugs anyway,” Dean says.

“Yeah, but it’s the stuff that comes _after_ – “

Dean takes what might just be the fastest shower of his life.

 

Sam’s waiting for him in his bedroom when he comes in, sprawled out on his bed like an asshole. Dean ignores him and starts picking through the piles on the floor for articles of clothing that could maybe still count as clean. If it doesn’t make him physically recoil, is Dean’s motto, it’s probably good enough.

He grabs an okay-looking shirt – no viscera, no condiment stains, practically designer wear by his standards – and gets ready to roll it on.

“ _Do not_ wear that,” Sam says, peeking over his shoulder. “Dude. Gross.”

“I _like_ this shirt,” Dean protests.

“You’ve been wearing it, like, all week. It’s _unsanitary._ ”

“That’s not _true._ There was the torn up shirt, too, and, um.”

“You have clean clothes. Wear _those._ ”

“How ‘bout I just don’t wear anything at all?” Dean offers, and Sam swallows so hard he can hear it. 

“That’s, um. That’d be fine.”

Dean is suddenly, bone-shakingly unsure. This would make it real, he thinks. This is them, on the other side of yet another almost-apocalypse, the other side of his almost-death, and he wants his brother and he _needs_ his brother but if Sam doesn’t want this, if he’d rather back out – and he _should_ back out, he should find someone healthy, and – 

Sam’s arm wraps around his waist from behind and he leans into it compulsively, rests his bare back against Sam’s broad chest, feels his nipples pressing twin points into his skin. His brother, hot as a sun, sturdy and solid, the whole of everything he’s ever wanted wanting him right back.

If he runs, he will be running for himself. Not for Sam.

“Dean – ?” Sam is asking, and Dean turns around in his arms, crashes their lips together, lets out a helpless whimper. He won’t. He can’t. He’ll never let this go. 

Sam kisses back starved and restless, his tongue desperate in Dean’s mouth. His hands come down to untie the towel around his waist and Dean lets him, leans his naked skin against Sam like he’d be happy to crawl inside him, wield them together for good.

Sam’s hands are everywhere, the small of his back, his forearms, his neck. One of them brushes against a nipple and Dean breaks apart their kiss to gasp, say _Sam, Sammy._

“I want you to fuck me,” Sam says, apropos of nothing, and goes fire-hydrant red, his eyes shifting nervous off to the side.

Dean’s dick rockets from _halfway there_ to _hell yes_ almost instantaneously. “Like – you want me to – “

“Not if you don’t want to, but I’d really like if you, um. I wanna feel you.”

“Holy shit, Sam, fuck,” Dean says, and surges in close to kiss him again, open and messy and starved.

“I take it that’s a yes,” Sam says, when he pulls away.

“ _Yes,”_ Dean says, and nips at his jawline, sucks a row of kisses along his neck. “Yes. Please, Sam, _yes.”_

He nudges them backward to the bed, collapses on top of him.

“Oof,” Sam says, and Dean sucks his nipple into his mouth, tugs just a little with his teeth. He’s keeping his cock carefully away from Sam’s skin, wanting to draw this out as long as he can, knowing that he won’t be able to last long at _all_ once he’s inside him, his brother, fuck –  

“Lube,” Dean says. “Lube, lube, we need lube – “

“My duffle,” Sam gasps, and Dean vaults off of him to the floor, nearly takes off a fingernail trying to get into the bag. “Side pocket,” Sam says, and Dean’s digging around, digging – hell _yeah,_ here we go –

“Sam,” Dean says, rolling the clear little bottle between his palms. “Why is it pink.”

“’S strawberry flavored,” Sam says, and glares at him. “Not a _word._ It smells better, okay? The normal stuff’s weird.”

“We got an expert here, huh?” Dean says, and nudges him to move, let him slide in underneath. “There – so that I’m under you, see? So I can reach you.”

Sam is bracing himself with his forearms at either side of Dean’s chest, looking straight down at his face, his eyes fierce with light and hunger and maybe, somewhere, a little bit of fear. Dean reaches up and trails his hands down Sam’s tanned, well-muscled flanks, keeps his movement slow and deliberate. He can feel Sam’s erection pressing down near his own and it is hard, _so_ hard to stop himself from wriggling up, stealing a little friction.

“You sure, Sammy?” he says.

Sam puffs an irritated breath onto his face. “Don’t call me Sammy. Yeah, I’m _sure._ Been sure forever.”

“Up a little. There we go.” Dean pets his hips, skims his hands over the curve of Sam’s ass, drags them up again. He finds the waist of Sam’s sweatpants and tugs it down until he can palm a whole handful of soft, round flesh, feel the place where the backs of his thighs begin. Sam shivers.

He’s a little amazed at the way the skin gives, how it swells up around his fingers when he digs them in. He can’t help but idle there, squeezing and massaging, pulling his cheeks apart just a little bit and then kneading them back together again, getting a feel for their elasticity.

“Dude,” Sam says. “Get on with it.”

“Patience, my young padawan,” Dean tells him, and Sam rolls his eyes. “Where’d the lube go? Ah, right. Strawberry flavor, for her highness’s delicate sense of smell.”

Sam bitches and rolls his eyes more, and Dean takes the opportunity to roll a little of the stuff between his fingers, get it all warmed up. Sam still jumps a little when his hand snakes up to rest at the cleft of his ass.

“Okay, man, easy,” Dean says. He’s trying to be calm about this, good for his brother, but his stomach is a pandemonium of worry and fear and lust, _what if I hurt him, what if I hurt him, I want him so bad._

He won’t hurt him. He can’t. This is Sam, Sammy, and he can do this.    

He uses his dry hand to pull him open and the other to ease down lower, a _little_ lower, and, ah. There. Sam twitches and clenches underneath the feather-light brush of his index finger. He rubs over him, gentle, more gentle than he’d ever be with himself.

“You gotta relax, dude, or else it won’t work,” he says.

“Can’t,” Sam protests, but the anxiety leeches from his tense muscles, and on the next pass Dean’s able to dip just the pad of his finger past the edge of his rim, back out again and down, lube dripping onto the bed. 

“Whole room’s gonna smell like goddamn candy,” Dean grouses, and Sam snorts, leans in to kiss him.

While Sam’s distracted by his tongue, Dean puts a little pressure behind the push of his hand. He only means to slip in half an inch or so, but Sam swallows him up like he needs it, takes in all of his finger up to the first knuckle. He’s burning hot and silky inside and so, so tight, his rim shifting and clenching where it’s wrapped around Dean’s finger, and Jesus _Christ_ Dean wishes more than anything he could see where he’s weaning his brother open, see his muscles shudder and pulse.  

Sam moans into his mouth and kisses harder, more desperately, his tongue shoving past Dean’s, lathing the roof of his mouth. Dean takes this as permission to start fucking him with his finger, sliding it in and then out again, Sam’s body caving for him every time. He can’t fucking think about it, because if he thinks about it too hard he’ll start imagining how Sam’ll feel just like that on his cock, swallowing him down slick and eager every time, and _God,_ he wants to touch himself _so_ fucking bad, but this is for Sam – it’s for Sam, and he needs both his hands –

“More,” Sam gasps, breaking out of the kiss. “I can take – more, Dean, please.”

Dean keeps his hand moving, loosening Sam up bit by bit, but he doesn’t take the bait.

“I gotta know, man,” he says. “You ever done this before?”

“N-not with – anyone else – with my fingers – “

Dean’s wracked with images of his brother naked in the bathroom of some anonymous hotel room, arm stretched behind him, Sam with his mouth open in shocked pleasure when he finally figures out what feels good, Sam fingering himself with Dean right there in the other room –

“Fuck,” Dean says. “Fuck, Sammy, you gotta show me sometime, let me see – “

“Maybe I’ll, _ah,_ I’ll just do it now – ‘cuz you aren’t – you’re half-assing it – “

That is some blatant fucking manipulation if Dean’s ever heard any, but the kid’s ready for more anyway, so he gives in and presses in his middle finger along with his index. Sam’s breathing speeds up hard and he claws at the sheets with both hands, his legs spreading wide overtop Dean’s.

“Fuck – Dean, I – fuck, please – “

“I gotcha, Sammy, I gotcha. Relax. You okay?”

“ _Yes,”_ Sam says, and wriggles his hips a little to show just how okay he really is.

Dean groans at the contact, thinks about decomposing skeletons and leviathan mouths and the way Sam had looked slumped over his dying body. He’s still hard as a rock but at least he’s not coming in his pants like a teenager. Sam, oblivious, squeezes down on his fingers, makes him work through the drag, pull him open just a _little_ further. He slows even further and crooks his fingers, strokes his inner walls smooth and firm – changes up the angle a bit, more downward than horizontal – and Sam cries out, shoves himself back onto Dean’s hand.

“There?” Dean says, like he doesn’t already know.

“ _There,”_ Sam wails, hips working. “Please – _more – .”_    

Three fingers, now, and Sam is so tight around him, a burning, wet vice, pushing back to meet him when he drives forward. Dean separates them as much as he can, precious, heartless centimeters, and Sam stretches obligingly with him, taking whatever he’s willing to give.

“Let me,” Sam pants. “Wanna ride you, Dean, wanna – “

“Fuck – yeah, okay, _yes,”_ Dean says, half out of his mind with need, knowing he should stretch Sam out a little more at least but _God_ he has to be in him _now,_ or he might die for real.

Sam lifts up and kicks his sweats the rest of the way off, inches his legs up and under until his knees are bracketing Dean’s waist, hovering right above his aching, dripping cock. He’s got the presence of mind to slick himself up a little and then Sam’s hand is gripping him tight, holding him up and ready, and Dean can feel him pressing warm and wet up against his very tip and then he’s pressing _down,_ slow, torturous give. Sam’s eyes are shut in concentration and he looks a little like he’s trying to solve a particularly difficult math problem and Dean would laugh at the image but Sam’s letting him in and _in_ and that’s the head of his cock disappeared all the way into Sam’s body, the skin stretched taut and bruised red, already puffy and used-looking even though he hasn’t moved at all, has to let Sam sink his overwhelming slick heat down at his own pace. He’s so tight inside Dean can’t process the thought of pushing up because there’s no way the rest of him could go in there, only it _is_ and Sam’s already half of the way down, hiccupping and breathing hard.   

He is babbling, he realizes, _so good_ and _baby_ and _perfect,_ shit that he’d be embarrassed to say anywhere else but here, right now, Sam shaking on his cock.

And then Sam bites his lip and looks Dean dead in the eye and _sits,_ gets the meat of his ass right up against Dean’s pelvis in one jerky, frightened moment, and Dean’s inside him all the way. It is strange and intimate and wonderful, a thousand times more intense than anything he’d expected, a thousand times more real. Sam’s cock is still standing proud and hard and leaking everywhere, damp sticky mess on his belly and thighs. He mewls and shifts and tries to get himself comfortable, get himself ready.

When Sam starts moving it’s a revelation. He is clumsy at first, unsure of how to fuck himself down in a way that’s good for both of them, still glowing gold and beautiful in the low light. His thighs flex, tense, pick up a rhythm, start to support the swivel-flick pump of his hips, the slap of his cock against his belly, a glide that becomes easier the longer they go. Sam’s adapting for him, letting him in deeper, and Dean begins to move too, steadying him at the hips and fucking up, greedy, desperate. Sam sucks and pulls at him and he’s building towards orgasm so quickly – too quickly, and he can’t, he can’t –

“Sam, Sam, stop,” he says, grabbing at his shin.

Sam withdraws immediately, worry not _quite_ overtaking the want clouding his face. “You okay? What happened? Did I – ?”

“No! No, I’m fine, I just wanna – I don’t wanna come like this. I need you closer, I need you – “

“Yeah – yeah, me too – sit up, and I can, yeah. Like that.”

Sam climbs into his lap and drapes his arms over his shoulders, kisses him deep and deadly. They’re face-to-face now, panting hard into each other’s mouths, chests crushed together.

The angle is a little strange – Sam has to tilt his hips and use Dean’s shoulders for leverage – but he sinks down again in one quick stroke this time, takes Dean as deep as he can and starts to grind down in tight circles.

“Dean,” Sam says. “Fuck. You feel – touch me, please, I have to – “

Dean works a hand in between them and grabs his brother’s cock, starts to pump. Sam’s movements get wilder, more frenetic, his gasps high and sharp, building to a crescendo. It’s hard to keep up with him but Dean does his best, tries to jerk him off quick and steady even though he can feel his own abdomen clenching.

“Dean, Dean, Dean,” Sam chants, and then shudders, stills, his blunt fingernails clawing into Dean’s shoulder blades. He gasps and spills between the two of them, ropes of white lashing across Dean’s chest, catching on his nipples.

The pressure around his cock increases and he’s _so,_ so close, so ready to come, if Sam’d just keep moving, _please_ – and he _does,_ starts to lift himself up and back down again even though he’s limp and tired and sated, his hair falling into his eyes, his cock going soft and fragile. He rests his chin on Dean’s shoulder as he works and starts to whisper, _c’mon, give it to me, c’mon, big brother,_ and those two words shatter him, remake him, _big brother._

“Sam!” he says, and drives up into clenching, slick heat one last time, coming like a fucking freight train, shooting hard and deep into his baby brother. Sam rides him through it, fucking his come in deeper, letting it coat his twitching, spent cock.

He falls back, after, stunned and lightheaded, warm all over. Sam pulls off of him and sinks down next to him, probably dripping come and lube all over the bedsheets but Dean couldn’t care less. He feels, fuck, so good. He is alive.

He finds his brother’s hand between them, and laces their fingers together. Their house. Their bed. It is enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit, you guys. holy shit. 
> 
> thank you SO MUCH to everyone who's stuck around. you guys are amazing, and i love you all. i've been totally overwhelmed with your generosity and kindness. this fic would not be the 50,000 word monstrosity that it is without you. this is YOUR FAULT cURSE YOU
> 
> there is a promised timestamp of sam fucking around and crying about his brother, and there is (maybe?) a sequel, also. you've probably noticed there are still loose ends to tie up!!! 
> 
> see you next time, everyone.


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